Lakshmanasena

Who he is

Name

Lakshmanasena (Lakshmana Sena)

Title

Maharajadhiraja, lord of Gauda (Gaudeshvara)

Since

about 1178 or 1179 (about the twenty-first or twenty-second year of his reign on 1 January 1200)

Born

not known; Minhaj (about 1260) calls him an octogenarian, so about 80 in 1200 if he is right

Family

Son of Ballalasena (about 1160-1178) and grandson of Vijayasena. Sons: Visvarupasena and Kesavasena, who rule after him; later tradition and the Buddhist Pancharaksa add a Madhusena (date not given). No queen is named in the sources we could open.

Confidence

medium

Plates (the Bhowal plate is dated in his 27th year), the Saduktikarnamrita colophon (Saka 1127, year 27: 1205 CE), the Gitagovinda court verse and Minhaj. Banglapedia says he came to the throne "at a fairly old age" and died in 1206.

What it holds

• Radha, Varendra and Vanga as in Senas of Bengal; the royal domain (crown villages, tanks, tolls and ferries) in each
• Nadia on the Bhagirathi (his Ganges-bank residence)
• Vikramapura (royal camp in the eastern delta where his plates are issued)
• Lakshmanavati (Gauda), the northern capital named for him
• The right to grant land (the plates give villages to Brahmans with rights over the people and their punishment), to judge through his chief judge, and to coin silver puranas and regulate cowrie exchange
• Claims on Anga, Magadha, Kamarupa, Kalinga and Kashi, not holdings

How it was acquired

Succeeded Ballalasena about 1178 or 1179; earlier served his father and grandfather as a commander in the wars against Gauda and Varanasi (English Wikipedia).

Allies and rivals

Ministers: Halayudha Mishra, chief minister and chief judge (Halayudha and the ministers). Feudatories: Vatudasa and others (Vatudasa and Sridharadasa, Radha and Varendra samantas). Rivals: the Karnata king of Mithila, the Pithipatis and the Pala-line king of Gaya, Kamarupa, the Eastern Gangas, the independent line at Pattikera. The enemy that will matter is the Ghurid captain Bakhtiyar Khalji (Bakhtiyar Khalji). Minhaj (about 1260) compares his standing to that of Qutb al-Din Aibak.

How things stand that morning

Alive and ruling; the court has no sign of a Turkish threat. He cannot be placed on a given day: the plates show royal camps at Vikramapura, Minhaj places him at Nadia when the Turks come, and the northern capital bears his name. The likeliest winter seat is the Ganges-bank residence at Nadia or the eastern camp at Vikramapura. What he can do in the year: grant land and issue plates; keep or move the court; send an embassy to the Pithipatis or the Karnatas; raise river levies; patronise poets; and, if he is warned, put a guard on the Rajmahal gap and the Ganges road.

Wealth

Land revenue and the grants of Radha and Varendra; tolls on the Ganges and Padma ferries; the cowrie and silver currency; sugar, cloth and silk; the salt pans; elephants.

Military

Fleet, elephants, foot levies and samanta retinues. No fortress of masonry is named in the plates. No numbers.

Threats

• Bakhtiyar Khalji's column from Bihar by the forest roads (1202 to 1205)
• His own death and the succession between sons
• The Pattikera line and other separatists in the east

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1202 to 1205The Turks reach Nadia and the king retires east to Vikramapura (Minhaj's story, written about 1260).Depends on: See nie-realm-sena for the full discussion. Stopped by: A guard at the gap.
2. 1205 (Saka 1127, year 27)The Bhowal plate and the Saduktikarnamrita show him still the reigning king in the east.Depends on: The delta holds. Stopped by: The Turks cross the Padma.
3. 1206Dies; Visvarupasena succeeds.Depends on: Natural death. Stopped by: None.

Places of note

• Nadia: Ganges-bank residence.
• Vikramapura: Royal camp in the east.
• Lakshmanavati: Northern capital.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry nadia-nabadwip: "about twenty-two years into his reign". Agreed.
• English Wikipedia's Lakshmanasena page says he "established the Lakshmana era"; Kielhorn's 1890 epoch (about 1119) cannot be his accession, which is 1178 or 1179 by the plates; what the era commemorates is disputed.
• English Wikipedia (Sena dynasty) gives his reign as 1179-1206, Banglapedia c. 1178-1206.

Evidence: Plates and a court anthology fix the reign; his age and his movements in 1200 rest on Minhaj and on probability.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Three block parts mark his seats; his real holdings are crown villages scattered inside the realm.

Primary sources for Senas of Bengal

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India. Read online
• The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna. Read online
• Inscriptions of Bengal, vol. 3, Various (the Sena kings' chanceries), edited by N. G. Majumdar (copper plates of the 10th to early 13th centuries; edited 1929). The one-volume edition of the Sena copper plates, the main documentary evidence for Bengal around 1200. Read online
• Epigraphia Indica: inscriptions of the Chandelas, Paramaras, Gahadavalas, Chaulukyas, Senas and Eastern Gangas, Various (edited for the Archaeological Survey of India by J. Burgess, E. Hultzsch, F. Kielhorn, Sten Konow, F. W. Thomas and successors) (inscriptions of the 1180s to 1210s; the series ran from 1892). The main record series for the Hindu kingdoms of northern India around 1200. Read online
• The Song of Govinda, Jayadeva (late 12th century, by tradition at the court of Lakshmanasena of Bengal). A literary witness, not a chronicle. Read online
• The History of India as Told by its Own Historians: the Muhammadan Period, vol. 2, Various (Ibn al-Athir, Hasan Nizami, Awfi, Juzjani and others), edited by H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (the sources date from the 1190s to the 14th century; the collection was published in 1869). A one-volume anthology of the Arabic and Persian accounts of the Ghurid conquest. Read online