Pala Dynasty: Palas of Bengal and Bihar

Origins and Rise of the Pala Empire

Matsyanyaya and the Election of Gopala

Bengal fell into disorder after the fall of Shashanka's Gauda kingdom, and the sources of the time describe the state of affairs as matsyanyaya, the "justice of the fish", in which the big fish eat the small ones. There was no central authority, and petty chieftains fought one another constantly. The way out was unusual in Indian history. Regional chieftains chose Gopala as king, and in 750 CE he became the first Pala ruler.

Dharmapala's Khalimpur copper plate records the event in a verse stating that the people (prakriti) made Gopala take the hand of Lakshmi in order to put an end to the state of affairs among the fishes. The same plate names his father as Vapyata and his grandfather as Dayitavishnu. The verse is a eulogy and uses the word prakriti figuratively. Gopala was chosen by a group of feudal chieftains rather than by all his subjects, and such elections were quite common in the region at the time.

Gopala's kingdom probably covered most of Bengal, that is Gauda, Varendra and Banga, and part of Magadha. Little is known of his military career. The ending -pala in the names of the Pala kings means "protector".

Gopala's accession is dated 750 CE in the current NCERT textbook; other accounts begin Pala rule in 756. The regnal years of the later Pala kings also vary by a few years among historians, so their dates are best held as approximate.

Social Origin and Religion of the Pala Kings

The origin of the Palas is uncertain. A later Pala poem places their homeland in Varendra in North Bengal. Some texts brand the dynasty as Shudra, among them the 8th-century Manjushri-Mulakalpa, and later works of the 15th and 16th centuries describe the Palas as low Kshatriyas. The court poem Ramacharitam, on the other hand, hails Dharmapala as the glory of the Samudra, or oceanic, dynasty.

Their religion was not exclusively Buddhist. Dharmapala was a great patron of Mahayana Buddhism, and the Pala copper plates emphasise their Buddhist affiliation. Yet many Pala images and inscriptions show support to brahmanas and to the worship of Shiva and Vishnu. Mahipala I and Nayapala were initiated as Shaivites by their royal preceptors, Vigrahapala III is described as devoted to Shiva, and Narayanapala built several Shiva temples. The accurate description is that the Pala kings patronised Buddhist learning on a large scale while living in a society where Hindu and Buddhist traditions overlapped.

Royal patronage of Buddhism was not new in India. Centuries earlier, under the Ikshvaku kings who ruled from Vijayapuri, Nagarjunakonda in the Krishna valley became the largest Buddhist centre in South India, with more than thirty monasteries.

Extent and Administration of the Pala Empire

Core Territory, Capitals and Cities

The heartland of the Pala empire was Bengal and Bihar, the lower Ganga plain from Magadha in the west to Varendra and Banga in the east. The major cities of this region under the Palas included Gauda, Vikramapura, Pataliputra, Monghyr (Munger), Somapura, Ramavati in Varendra, Tamralipta and Jagaddala. The capital moved with the fortunes of the dynasty. Monghyr was the base from which Dharmapala and Devapala issued their grants, and Ramapala later made Ramavati his capital, which it remained until the end of the dynasty.

At its height in the early ninth century the empire was the dominant power of northern India, with influence over the Gangetic plain down to the Vindhya range, and possibly as far east as Goalpara in Assam. The Pala empire flourished on the farming wealth of the Ganga plain and on trade, both internal and maritime, through its seaports on the east coast to Southeast Asia. Dharmapala took the title Paramesvara Paramabhattaraka Maharajadhiraja, and a poet from Gujarat called him Uttarapathasvamin, "Lord of the North".

Administration, Army and Navy

The Pala state was a monarchy with the king at the centre of all power. The Palas appointed prime ministers called mahamantri, and the line of Garga served in the post for about a hundred years. The empire was divided into bhuktis (provinces), which were divided into vishayas (divisions) and mandalas (districts), with smaller units below them. The highest military officer was the mahasenapati.

The army was famous for its elephants. Contemporary accounts rated the Rashtrakutas as having the best infantry, the Gurjara-Pratiharas the finest cavalry and the Palas the largest elephant force. Bengal had no good native breed of horses, so the Palas imported cavalry horses, including from the Kambojas, and recruited mercenary soldiers from many kingdoms. The Arab merchant Sulaiman, writing in 851 CE, described the Pala army as larger than those of its rivals, but his figures are considered exaggerated. A navy served both trade and defence in the Bay of Bengal.

The weakness of this system was its dependence on subordinate chiefs, the samantas. Dharmapala's imperial assemblies were loose arrangements in which other rulers accepted his supremacy but kept their own territories, unlike the centralised empires of the Mauryas or the Guptas. That dependence was exposed in the eleventh century.

The Tripartite Struggle and the Great Pala Emperors

Dharmapala and the Struggle for Kannauj

Dharmapala, the son of Gopala, made the Palas a dominant power of north and east India, and under him the dynasty entered the tripartite struggle for Kannauj against the Gurjara-Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas. The struggle was a long and indecisive contest between the three powers in the eighth and ninth centuries, with no lasting victor. The sequence below is the Pala side of it.

1. The Pratihara king Vatsaraja defeated the king of Kannauj and then defeated Dharmapala. The Rashtrakuta king Dhruva then defeated Vatsaraja and met Dharmapala in the Doab, and returned to the Deccan without making permanent conquests.
2. Around 791 CE Dharmapala occupied Kannauj, removed Indrayudha and installed his own nominee Chakrayudha. He held an imperial court there that was attended by the rulers of Bhoja, Matsya, Madra, Kuru, Yadu, Yavana, Avanti, Gandhara and Kira.
3. The Rashtrakuta king Govinda III later defeated Nagabhata II, the son of Vatsaraja, and both Chakrayudha and Dharmapala submitted to the Rashtrakuta overlord.
4. The Pratihara king Nagabhata II took Kannauj from Chakrayudha, and in the battle near Munger (Monghyr) he defeated Dharmapala. This ended the Pala hold on Kannauj. Accounts differ on how this defeat is ordered relative to Govinda III's campaign.

The struggle ended in 816 with Kannauj in Pratihara hands, while the Palas remained the dominant power of the east.

Devapala at the Height of Pala Power

Devapala, son of Dharmapala and a Rashtrakuta princess named Rannadevi, is regarded as the most powerful Pala emperor and ruled for about forty years. Under him the empire reached its greatest territorial extent and prosperity. His cousin and general Jayapala led expeditions to Pragjyotisha (Assam), whose king submitted without a fight, and to Utkala (northern Odisha), whose king fled his capital.

The Badal Pillar inscription, issued in the reign of his successor Narayanapala, credits Devapala with uprooting the Utkalas, humbling the Hunas and scattering the pride of the Dravidas and the Gurjaras. The same inscription claims that the whole country between the Himalaya and the Vindhya and between the eastern and western seas paid him tribute. Nitish K. Sengupta calls the inscription highly exaggerated, while Pramode Lal Paul and Ratikanta Tripathi hold that the claim was fact and not mere praise, since the Rashtrakutas and the Pratiharas were weak at the time.

His own inscription says that he freed the Himalaya from the Tibetans, and Chinese records show that Tibetan control of the Himalaya was lost between 839 and 848 CE. The Gurjara in the praise is generally taken to be the Pratihara king Mihira Bhoja (c. 836 to c. 885).

Narayanapala to Vigrahapala II: The First Decline

After Devapala the Pala empire began to break up. Narayanapala, who ruled for about 54 years, was a weak king, and during his reign the Pratihara king Mihira Bhoja defeated the Palas. Encouraged by this decline, King Harjara of Assam took imperial titles. Narayanapala lost control of Assam and Odisha, although the claim that he also briefly lost Magadha and North Bengal has since been rejected.

Under Vigrahapala II the empire broke into smaller kingdoms such as Gauda, Radha, Anga and Vanga, and the Chandela and Kalachuri kings invaded. Kantideva of Harikela in eastern and southern Bengal took the title Maharajadhiraja. The Gauda state in western and northern Bengal passed to the Kamboja Pala dynasty, whose rulers also bore names ending in -pala but whose origin is uncertain.

Mahipala I and the Pala Revival

Mahipala I recovered northern and eastern Bengal within three years of taking the throne in the late tenth century, and regained Gauda, which the Kambojas had held. He also gained control of north and south Bihar and may have held Varanasi. He ordered the construction and repair of sacred structures at Sarnath, Nalanda and Bodh Gaya, and the Mahipala geet, folk songs about him, are still sung in rural Bengal.

The revival was tested from the south. Rajendra Chola I invaded Bengal in the years 1021 to 1023 CE and also defeated Mahipala, taking "elephants of rare strength, women and treasure". The raid humbled the Bengal rulers but did not end Pala rule. Mahipala's son Nayapala later defeated the Kalachuri king Karna after a long struggle, and the two made peace through the mediation of the Buddhist scholar Atisha.

Ramapala, the Kaivarta Revolt and the Ramacharitam

The last strong Pala king was Ramapala. His brother Mahipala II had imprisoned him, and Mahipala II was then killed in a revolt of samantas led by Divya, a Kaivarta chief, who occupied Varendra, the Pala homeland, in the later eleventh century. Varendra stayed under Divya's successors Rudak and Bhima. Historians interpret the revolt differently. R. C. Majumdar read it as a rebellion by a local chief timed to Pala weakness, while Ram Sharan Sharma took it to be a peasant rebellion against feudal oppression.

Ramapala gathered support from local chiefs with offers of gold and land, defeated Bhima and had him executed, and recovered Varendra. He made Ramavati his capital, reduced taxes, promoted cultivation and built public utilities, and he brought Kamarupa and Rarh under his control. He lost Mithila to a Karnata chief named Nanyadeva, and an adventurer called Vallabharaja gained Bodh Gaya before making peace with the Palas by marriage.

The reign is known through the Ramacharitam, a Sanskrit poem in four cantos by the court poet Sandhyakar Nandi. It uses double meaning in every verse to narrate at once the story of the Ramayana and the story of Ramapala. It is the only literary source for the middle and late Pala period, though it is written in favour of Ramapala. The Kaivarta revolt weakened Pala control over subordinate rulers and prepared the way for the Senas.

The End of Pala Rule and the Rise of the Senas

Ramapala was the last strong Pala emperor. His son Kumarapala kept most of the territory, and his minister Vaidyadeva crushed a rebellion in Kamarupa, but after Kumarapala's death Vaidyadeva practically created a separate kingdom. Madanapala, the last confirmed Pala king, captured Munger from the Gahadavalas, but was defeated by Vijayasena of the Sena dynasty, who took southern and eastern Bengal. Vijayasena ruled from 1096 to 1159, and the Sena dynasty replaced the Palas in Bengal.

Two rulers named Govindapala and Palapala ruled the Gaya district from about 1162 to 1200, but their relationship to the imperial Palas is not established. The Sena dynasty itself was founded by Samanta Sena, and Hemanta Sena styled himself king in 1095. The mahaviharas that the Palas had supported were destroyed in the late twelfth century, as described below.

Pala Rulers and Contemporary Dynasties

Pala Rulers and Their Achievements

The main Pala rulers and the achievement each is remembered for are listed below. Exact regnal years differ among historians, so the periods are approximate.

Read together, the rulers trace four phases. Gopala's election began the dynasty, and Dharmapala and Devapala carried it to its peak in the early ninth century. A long decline followed under Narayanapala and his successors, when the Kamboja Palas held Gauda. Mahipala I and later Ramapala revived Pala power, before Madanapala lost Bengal to the Senas in the twelfth century.

Dating the Palas Among Their Contemporaries

One reference date for each dynasty is enough to place the Palas among their contemporaries in other regions. The dates below are approximate. They place the Pallava Mahendravarman I in the early seventh century, well before the Palas, and the Gauda king Shashanka, whose fall left Bengal in disorder, as a contemporary of Harsha. Gopala comes in the middle of the eighth century. The Pratihara Mihira Bhoja, who clashed with Devapala's successors, belongs to the ninth century, and the Chola Parantaka I to the early tenth.

Buddhist Mahaviharas under the Pala Kings

Nalanda under Pala Patronage

Nalanda was founded in the Gupta age, with the seal evidence pointing to Kumaragupta I in the fifth century CE, and it flourished under later rulers including Harsha. Under the Palas it continued to be supported, and Dharmapala and Devapala were active patrons. Dharmapala is credited with granting 200 villages to the university and reviving it. A number of ninth-century metal images bearing Devapala's name have been found among the ruins. The excavated remains of Nalanda Mahavihara, about 88 km from Patna, were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 15 July 2016.

Nalanda was a mahavihara, a large monastery complex made of several monasteries of different sizes. All three Buddhist traditions, Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana, were taught there, and monks came from China, Tibet and Central Asia in the north and from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma and other lands of South-East Asia. Under the Palas the older Mahayana tradition of Nalanda gave way to the newly rising Vajrayana, a tantric form of Buddhism, and the Palas built new Vajrayana monasteries nearby. State funding to Vikramashila and Odantapuri far exceeded what Nalanda received, which may explain why Nalanda struggled for survival around the eleventh century.

Two inscriptions of Devapala's time are exam favourites. The Nalanda copper plate records that Balaputradeva, the Sailendra king of Suvarnadvipa, built a monastery at Nalanda and asked Devapala to grant the revenue of five villages for its upkeep, which was granted. The Ghosrawan inscription records that Devapala patronised a monk called Viradeva, who was elected head of Nalanda.

Vikramashila, the Premier University

Vikramashila was founded by Dharmapala on the bank of the Ganga in the late eighth century, in the Bhagalpur district of present-day Bihar (the site is at Antichak village near Kahalgaon). It remained a great centre of learning for more than four centuries. It had six colleges, monasteries, temples, lecture halls and a vast library, and nearly 3,000 scholars studied grammar, logic, Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and rituals.

Admission was highly selective. Each college had a dvarapandita, a "scholar gatekeeper", who tested a student before admitting him. Vikramashila was especially known for its ties with Tibet, because its teacher Atisha travelled there, translated Sanskrit works into Tibetan and played a major role in shaping Tibetan Buddhism. Tantra was the most important branch of learning here. The site lies about 38 km from Bhagalpur, and unlike Nalanda, what is known of Vikramashila's history comes almost entirely from Tibetan texts.

Excavations led by B. P. Sinha of Patna University from 1960 to 1969 and then by the Archaeological Survey of India from 1972 to 1982 revealed a huge square monastery with each side 330 metres long and 208 cells, with a cruciform stupa about 15 metres high in its centre and a separate library building. The university was destroyed by the forces of Bakhtiyar Khilji around 1193.

Somapura Mahavihara at Paharpur

Somapura Mahavihara at Paharpur in the Naogaon district of Bangladesh is a monastic complex of 21 acres (8.5 ha), inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. Seals found there carry the inscription Shri-Somapure-Shri-Dharmapaladeva-Mahavihariyarya-bhiksu-sangghasya, which identifies it as Dharmapala's foundation. Dharmapala is generally named as the founder of both Somapura and Vikramashila. Tibetan sources credit Devapala with building it after his conquest of Varendra, and Devapala is also said to have restored and enlarged it.

The monastery is a quadrangle with 177 cells for monks around a large courtyard, and in the middle stands a cruciform temple with terraces and inset chambers. The outer walls carry ornamental terracotta plaques that show the influence of the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain traditions. The plan and the stepped, dwindling pyramid form of the central structure are strongly reminiscent of the temples of Burma, Java and Cambodia, and the nearest match to the plan is found in the Chandi Loro Jongrang and Chandi Sevu temples of Prambanan in Central Java. The Vikramashila stupa resembles Somapura in plan, but Somapura is centred on a temple while Vikramashila is centred on a stupa.

Odantapuri, Jagaddala and the Network of Five Mahaviharas

Odantapuri, at the present Bihar Sharif in Bihar, is believed to have been founded by Gopala in the eighth century. Accounts differ on the founder: Buton credits Dharmapala, and Taranatha names either Gopala or Devapala. Its exact location is still not conclusively established. Its library was burnt when the army of Bakhtiyar Khilji sacked it at the end of the twelfth century, and the surviving monks fled to Nepal and Tibet.

Jagaddala is the youngest of the five. It stood in Varendra, near present Jagdal in the Naogaon district of Bangladesh, and was founded probably by Ramapala in the late eleventh century. It flourished until the middle of the twelfth century.

According to Tibetan sources the five great mahaviharas of the Pala age were Vikramashila, Nalanda, Somapura, Odantapuri and Jagaddala. They formed a network under state supervision, with a system of co-ordination among them, and great scholars moved easily from one to another.

Pala Art, Literature and Language

Pala Bronze Sculpture and the Nalanda and Kurkihar Schools

The period between the ninth and eleventh centuries in Bengal and Bihar gives its name to the Pala style of sculpture, and the style that follows, from the mid-eleventh to the mid-thirteenth centuries, is named after the Senas. Nalanda sculpture began in heavy dependence on the Buddhist Gupta art of Sarnath. By the ninth century a synthesis of the Sarnath Gupta idiom with the local Bihar tradition and that of central India produced the Nalanda school, marked by precise workmanship, ordered figures without crowding and delicate ornament on the back slabs. The Nalanda bronzes, dated from about the seventh and eighth centuries to about the twelfth, outnumber the metal images found at all other eastern sites.

A school of bronze-casting emerged at Nalanda around the ninth century, and sculptors at Kurkihar near Nalanda revived the classical Gupta style. A remarkable example is a four-armed Avalokitesvara in the graceful tribhanga pose. The Kurkihar hoard of 1930 consisted of 226 bronzes, mostly Buddhist, dating between the ninth and twelfth centuries. As Vajrayana grew, goddess worship was adopted and images of Tara became popular, seated on a throne with her right hand in the abhaya mudra. Crowned Buddhas commonly occur only after the tenth century.

Pala and Sena sculpture in general shows deity figures that are rigid in posture, often standing with straight legs, loaded with jewellery and given many arms to hold attributes. The typical temple image is a slab with a main figure in very high relief, surrounded by smaller attendants. Many more small bronze groups survive than from earlier periods, made for the domestic shrines of the well-off and for monasteries. Over time, Hindu figures came to outnumber Buddhist ones, reflecting the decline of Buddhism even in its last stronghold.

Pala Palm-Leaf Manuscript Painting

Pala illustrated manuscripts, like the Jain ones, form the earliest examples of paintings from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The monasteries of Nalanda and Vikramashila were great centres of learning and also of art, and they illustrated numerous palm-leaf manuscripts with Buddhist themes and images of Vajrayana deities. The same centres had workshops for casting bronze images.

Pala painting is distinguished by a flowing, sinuous line in subdued colours, unlike the terse lines of Jain painting, and, as at Ajanta, the painted images speak the same language as the sculpture of the monasteries. A fine example is the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita, the "Perfection of Wisdom" in eight thousand lines, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It was painted at Nalanda in the fifteenth year of Ramapala's reign, in the last quarter of the eleventh century, and has six pages of illustrations and wooden covers painted on both sides.

Pala art came to an end in the first half of the thirteenth century, when the invaders attacked and destroyed the monasteries.

Pala Architecture and Terracotta

The Palas are celebrated as patrons of Buddhist monastic sites, while the temples of the region express the local Vanga style. An early Pala-period example is the Mahadeva temple at Barakar in Burdwan district, with a tall curving shikhara crowned by a large amalaka, similar to temples of Odisha.

Pala architecture is best seen in the terracotta plaques of Somapura and Vikramashila. The plaques at the Vikramashila stupa show Buddhist deities such as Avalokiteshvara, Manjusri, Maitreya and Tara, along with Vishnu, Parvati, Hanuman, ascetics, drummers, warriors and many animals. At Somapura they include themes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The sculptures in the niches of the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya are dated to the Pala period, although the temple as it stands is largely a colonial-period reconstruction of an older design.

Charyapada, the Ramacharitam and Pala Learning

The Pala age produced a literature in Sanskrit and in the early eastern languages. The Charyapada is a collection of mystical Vajrayana poems and songs of realisation from the tantric tradition of Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, compiled between about 1000 and 1200 CE in late Apabhramsha and related dialects. Scholars of Assamese, Bengali, Magahi, Maithili and Odia all find features of their languages in it. Its palm-leaf manuscript was rediscovered at the Royal Court Library of Nepal in the early twentieth century by Haraprasad Shastri.

Other notable Pala writers include Jimutavahana, author of the Dayabhaga, the physician Chakrapani Datta and the poet Sandhyakar Nandi. Many Buddhist tantric works were written and translated during Pala rule, and Buddhist scholars of the period include Atisha, Santaraksita, Saraha and Tilopa.

Pala Links with Tibet and Southeast Asia

Atisha and the Spread of Buddhism to Tibet

Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana (c. 982 to 1054 CE) was a Buddhist teacher born in Bengal, most probably at Vikrampura, one of the capitals of the Pala empire. He studied with teachers including Ratnakarashanti, Naropa and Jitari, and rose to be a senior scholar and then abbot at Vikramashila, the Pala monastery with which his work is associated.

The king of Guge in Tibet, Yeshe-O, sent missions to Vikramashila to invite scholars to teach the "pure form of Buddhism". Atisha left Vikramashila in 1040 CE and travelled through Nepal to Tolung, the capital of the Purang kingdom. There he composed the Bodhipathapradipa, the "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment", a short text of sixty-seven verses that became the model for later lamrim texts, and he taught his chief disciple Dromton. Atisha and Dromton are regarded as founders of the Kadam school of Tibetan Buddhism. Before this, Atisha had also travelled to Sumatra.

Tibet's contact with Nalanda was older. From the seventh century Tibetan monks such as Thonmi Sambhota came to Nalanda to study Buddhism and Sanskrit, and he is credited with remodelling the Tibetan script on Sanskrit. Vikramashila became the Pala centre of the Tibetan connection.

Srivijaya, Java and the Reach of Pala Art

The Nalanda copper plate of Devapala, dated to about 860 CE, records the donation of Balaputradeva, the Sailendra king of Suvarnadvipa, who built a monastery at Nalanda and requested the revenue of five villages for its upkeep: Nandivanaka, Manivatika, Natika, Hasti and Palamaka. Balaputradeva belonged to the Sailendra dynasty of Java and ruled Srivijaya from Palembang in Sumatra after he left Java. The Srivijaya kingdom maintained direct contact with Nalanda and the Palas, and this influenced the art of Sumatra, Java and southern Thailand between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Indonesian bronzes and votive tablets of the period overlap in their iconography with those from Nalanda.

Students and pilgrims from all over Southeast Asia came to the Pala monasteries and took home bronzes and illustrated manuscripts. This carried Pala art to Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka and Java. The seaports on the Pala east coast gave pathways to Southeast Asia, and the Palas maintained relations with the Srivijaya empire, the Tibetan empire and the Abbasid Caliphate.

Decline of the Palas and of Buddhism in the East

Destruction of the Mahaviharas and the Decline of Indian Buddhism

Bakhtiyar Khilji, an army commander of Qutb-ud‑din Aibak, who served the Ghurid ruler Muhammad Ghuri, campaigned in eastern India from the end of the twelfth century and conquered Bihar and Bengal. On the way he destroyed large Buddhist monasteries and universities such as Nalanda and Vikramashila and slaughtered many monks. Historians of Buddhism broadly agree that the destruction of these large centres of learning precipitated the decline of Buddhism in India, although a few other factors also played a role. The dates in the sources vary: Vikramashila is placed around 1193 and Nalanda around 1200.

Tibetan records say that monks who survived the attack fled to Tibet and Nepal, and manuscripts from Vikramashila's library have been found in Nepal and Tibet. By this time the Palas had given way to the Senas, a Hindu dynasty. The fall of the Palas ended the last major Buddhist imperial power of the subcontinent.

Pala Age in the History of Indian Buddhism

Why the Pala Age Was the Last Great Phase of Indian Buddhism

The Pala age is the last great phase of Buddhism in India for four connected reasons. Royal patronage came first, as Dharmapala and Devapala supported Nalanda, founded Vikramashila and Somapura and accepted foreign gifts such as Balaputradeva's monastery. Patronage built institutions, and the five mahaviharas worked as a state-supervised network in which scholars moved freely. The institutions in turn shaped doctrine and art, as Vajrayana grew into the leading form of Buddhism and the monasteries produced the bronzes and palm-leaf paintings of the Pala school.

The same monasteries carried Buddhism abroad. Atisha took the teaching of Vikramashila to Tibet, where the Kadam school traces its origin to him and his disciple Dromton, and the Sailendra link spread Pala art to Sumatra and Java. The weakness lay in that very concentration. When Bakhtiyar Khilji's forces destroyed Nalanda and Vikramashila at the end of the twelfth century, Buddhism lost the royal and institutional base that had kept it alive in the plains.

Sources

• NCERT: Class 7 Exploring Society: India and Beyond Book 2, Chapter 3
• NCERT: Class 7 Exploring Society: India and Beyond Book 2, Chapter 4
• NCERT: Class 11 An Introduction to Indian Art Book 1, Chapter 6
• NCERT: Class 11 An Introduction to Indian Art Book 1, Chapter 7
• NCERT: Class 12 An Introduction to Indian Art Book 2, Chapter 1
• Wikipedia: Pala Empire
• Wikipedia: Gopala I
• Wikipedia: Dharmapala of Bengal
• Wikipedia: Devapala of Bengal
• Wikipedia: Tripartite Struggle
• Wikipedia: Narayanapala
• Wikipedia: Ramapala
• Wikipedia: Ramacharitam
• Wikipedia: Sena dynasty
• Wikipedia: Nalanda mahavihara
• Wikipedia: Vikramashila
• Wikipedia: Somapura Mahavihara
• Wikipedia: Odantapuri
• Wikipedia: Jagaddala Mahavihara
• Wikipedia: Kurkihar hoard
• Wikipedia: Charyapada
• Wikipedia: Atiśa
• Wikipedia: Balaputra
• Wikipedia: Shailendra dynasty
• Wikipedia: Shashanka
• Wikipedia: Mahendravarman I
• Wikipedia: Mihira Bhoja
• Wikipedia: Parantaka I
• Wikipedia: Varendra
• Wikipedia: Nagarjunakonda
• Wikipedia: Gurdwara Hemkund Sahib
• Wikipedia: Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves
• Wikipedia: Amaravati Stupa
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Ruins of the Buddhist Vihara at Paharpur
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Archaeological Site of Nalanda Mahavihara at Nalanda, Bihar
• Press Information Bureau: Archaeological Site of Nalanda Mahavihara inscribed in the World Heritage List, 15 July 2016
• Bhagalpur District Administration: Places of interest (Vikramshila)
• UPSC: Civil Services Examination question papers