Vikramapura
The Candra kings held Harikela and Vaṅga — the eastern and southeastern deltaic country — from a capital at Vikramapura, in ancient India (modern-day Munshiganj, Bangladesh). Their copper-plate grants are numerous enough to give a reasonably firm succession, and Śrīcandra, who ruled for some forty years in the tenth century, is the best documented.
The dynasty was Buddhist, and its patronage sustained the monastic institutions of eastern Bengal in the period when the Pālas were doing the same further west. The great monastery at Mainamati, near Comilla, belongs to this milieu.
Across the bay
A related or identically named Candra line ruled in Arakan, on the far side of the Bay of Bengal, and the relationship between the two has been much discussed without being settled. Eastern Bengal and Arakan were in continuous contact by sea, and the Buddhist culture of the region spanned the coast rather than stopping at the delta.
The Candras were displaced in the eleventh century by the Varmans, and eastern Bengal then passed to the Senas.
Further reading
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. University of Hawaii Press, 2003
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Singh, Upinder. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India. Pearson, 2008
- Ali, Daud. Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India. Cambridge University Press, 2004
- Behrendt, Kurt A. The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.