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Some Notes on the Palaces of the Imperial Gurjara Pratīhāras
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
Extract
The Gurjara Pratīhāras have long been recognised as the leading royal house of northern India during the ninth and tenth centuries. A considerable number of copper plate and stone inscriptions have survived from Pratīhāra times and these have provided the requisite data for a reconstruction of the dynasty's political and social history. Following conventions established in the Gupta period if not before, the copper-plates of the Pratīhāras record grants of villages or land, while stone inscriptions typically recount the building of temples and the provision of gifts to enshrined divinities. A large number of temples from the Pratīhāra age have been preserved; some of these buildings have enjoyed the recent scholarly attention of the team working on the Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture as well as the Temple Survey of the Archaeological Survey of India. In contrast, palatial architecture is virtually unknown. This is neither surprising nor unusual, there being little left of such buildings in any part of India from before the fourteenth century. This is due to the wide use of perishable building materials, notably wood, brick and stucco. In the case of the Pratīhāra rulers there is also the fact that their capital city of Kannauj (anc. Kānyakubja) has been completely destroyed. That the Pratīhāras were responsible for some building at Kannauj is indicated by the inscription, dated Harṣa year 276 (A.D. 882–3), from the shrine of Garībnāth at Pehowa. This inscription records, among many other things, that a temple of Viṣṇu Garuḍāsana was built by the Brāhmaṇa Bhūvaka on the banks of the river Gaṅgā in Bhojapura near Kānyakubja.
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References
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