The story
Around 750, after a period of chaos in Bengal, regional leaders choose a chieftain named Gopala as king. His dynasty, the Palas, ruled Bengal and Bihar for about four centuries. They were among the last great Buddhist royal houses in India. Under his son Dharmapala (ruled about 770 to 810) and grandson Devapala, the empire briefly stretched across much of northern India and fought the Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas for Kannauj in a long contest for control of the Ganges plain.
The Palas continued the Buddhist tradition of the Guptas and Harsha. They supported Nalanda, the great monastic university, and Dharmapala founded Vikramashila in Bihar and Somapura Mahavihara in Bengal, now in Bangladesh and a UNESCO site, each of which housed thousands of monks. Their artists produced distinctive bronze images and illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts of Buddhist texts. Pala Tantric Buddhism influenced the religious art and practice of Nepal, Tibet and Southeast Asia. The monasteries were also routes through which Buddhism was carried north. The Bengali scholar Atisha left Vikramashila for Tibet in 1042 and helped renew Buddhism there. The Palas lost ground in the 11th and 12th centuries to the Senas, and around 1200 Turkic forces under Bakhtiyar Khalji destroyed Bihar's monasteries, an event that ended the great age of Indian Buddhist universities.
Why it mattered
- It maintained Indian Buddhism's major monastic universities for four centuries.
- It transmitted Tantric Buddhism and art to Tibet, Nepal and Southeast Asia, shaping Tibetan Buddhism through teachers like Atisha.
- It created the Pala school of art, whose bronzes and manuscripts influenced later regional styles.
- It gave Bengal four centuries of mostly stable rule, in which the Bengali language took shape.
Sources
- Pala dynasty Britannica
- Ruins of the Buddhist Vihara at Paharpur UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Atisa Britannica
- Eastern Indian bronze Britannica
Community notes
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