Rise
After the decline of the Gurjara-Pratiharas, Kannauj passed through several hands. In the late eleventh century Chandradeva, of the Gahadavala family, whose origins are obscure, established control over Kannauj and Varanasi. His inscriptions claim that he protected the holy places of Kashi, Kushika (Kannauj), Uttara Kosala (Ayodhya) and Indrasthana after the troubles of the time.
Govindachandra
The dynasty reached its height under Govindachandra, who ruled for about forty years in the first half of the twelfth century. More copper-plate grants survive from his reign than from almost any other Indian king; they record gifts of villages to Brahmins and temples and give a detailed picture of rural society and administration. He fought the Palas of Bengal, the Kalachuris of Tripuri and the Ghaznavid governors of the Punjab. Some of the grants mention a tax called turushkadanda, which historians interpret either as a levy to pay tribute to the Turks or as a tax to fund defence against them.
Govindachandra's minister Lakshmidhara compiled the Krityakalpataru, a vast digest of Hindu law and ritual drawn from the Dharmashastras and Puranas, organised under topics such as pilgrimage, gifts, purification and the duties of kings. It became an authority for later legal writers across north India, and its section on pilgrimage gives special place to Varanasi, which the dynasty treated as its second capital and sacred centre.
Though the dynasty was Vaishnava, it supported Buddhism. Govindachandra's queen Kumaradevi built a monastery at Sarnath, the Dharmachakra Jina vihara, recorded in an inscription found there, and the king granted villages to Buddhist monks.
Jayachandra and the fall
Jayachandra, the last major ruler, came to the throne around 1170. The Sanskrit poet Shriharsha, author of the Naishadhacharita, is said to have been at his court. In the epic Prithviraj Raso, Jayachandra is the father of Samyogita, who elopes with his rival Prithviraja of Ajmer, and he is blamed for failing to help Prithviraja against the Ghurids. The story is a later literary creation and is not supported by contemporary evidence.
In 1194 Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur and his commander Qutb al-Din Aibak defeated Jayachandra at Chandawar, near Etawah, where he was killed, by tradition by an arrow in the eye. The Ghurid army went on to take Varanasi, where the sources record the destruction of many temples. Members of the family held out locally for a time, and some later Rajput clans, among them the Rathores of Marwar, claimed descent from the Gahadavalas, a claim that historians treat with caution.
Further reading
- Singh, Upinder. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India. Pearson, 2008
- Chattopadhyaya, B. D. The Making of Early Medieval India. Oxford University Press, 1994
- Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press, 1999
See also
- Kannauj — Kannauj, ancient Kanyakubja, is a city on the Ganga in present-day Uttar Pradesh that served as the imperial capital of North India from the reign of Harsha Vardhana in the early 7th century until its fall to Ghurid forces in 1194 CE.
- Gurjara-Pratihāra Empire — The Gurjara-Pratihāras ruled northern India from Kannauj for two centuries from the mid-eighth century, held back the Arab advance from Sindh, and were the leading power of the north until their collapse in the eleventh century.
- Ghurid Empire — The Ghurids were a dynasty from the mountains of Ghur in central Afghanistan who built an empire in the twelfth century and, under Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad, conquered northern India between 1175 and 1206, opening the way for the Delhi sultanate.
- Chāhamānas of Śākambharī — The Chāhamānas of Śākambharī were the leading Rajput dynasty of eastern Rajasthan, and their defeat at Tarain in 1192 opened northern India to the Ghurid conquest.
- Varanasi — Varanasi, traditionally known as Kāśī or Banaras, is a city on the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh regarded as the holiest site in Hinduism and among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.