Shashanka
ruler of Gauda
560 CE to 626 CE
Shashanka is often attributed with creating the first separate political entity in a unified Bengal called Gauda and as such is a major figure in Bengali history.
He reigns in 7th century CE, and some historians place his rule approximately between 590 and 625.
He is the contemporary of Harshavardana and Bhaskar Varman of Kamarupa.
His capital is called Karnasuvarna and is located in modern Murshidabad.
The development of the Bengali calendar is also often attributed to Shashanka as the starting date falls squarely within his reign.
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Mahasena Gupta, one of the so-called Later Gupta monarchs, is from about 575 assaulted from the east by the king of Kamarupa, Susthita Varman from the west, by the Maukhari ruler, Sharva-varman; and from the north by Songtsän Gampo, who will soon found the Tibetan Empire.
Mahasena Gupta, his crisis compounded by the defection of his vassal Shashanka, abandons his core state in Magadha and establishes his seat of government in his western territories of Malwa.
Shashanka, having abandoned his Later Gupta overlord, reestablishes independent rule over Gauda, formerly a vassal state under the Imperial Guptas, which now becomes the first separate political entity in Bengal.
His capital is called Karnasuvarna, which some historians have identified with Murshidabad, others with Rangamati (Chittagong).
Shashanka launches a series of attacks on his neighbors and …
…soon occupies Magadha, recently abandoned by the Later Guptas.
Upon securing Magadha, Shashanka begins attacking his neighbor to the south, Orissa, including Kongoda.
Harsha Vardhana, a sixteen-year-old prince of the former Gupta vassal kingdom of Thaneswar (Sthanvisvara), near Delhi, is enthroned in 606 following the slaying of his elder brother by Shashanka, the king of Gauda.
Harsha, who inherited the throne by agreeing to share power with his sister, the widowed queen of the Maukharis, moves his capital from Thaneswar to the Maukhari capital of Kananuj.
Aiming to avenge his brother’s death and restore the scope of the Gupta empire, Harsha, allies with King Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa.
Gaining influence from Assam in the east to Gujarat in the west, Harsha will over the next several years rebuild his kingdom on a feudal rather than a centralized basis.
Harsha, at the death of Shashanka around 620, incorporates the remainder of the late Gauda king’s lands into his empire, which now includes much of northern and eastern India.
The expansionist King Harsha of Thaneswar pushes eastward across the North Indian Plain around 618, meeting no resistance and gaining the allegiance of several petty kings.
Shashanka of Gauda, faced with Harsha’s army of fifty thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand cavalry, and five thousand elephants, forfeits (either through battle defeat or pragmatic politics; scholars are uncertain) some territory in Pundra-vardhana, which Harsha divides with his ally, Bhaskara Varman of Kamarupa.