#PulakeshinII

“The best evidence for his greatness comes from the enemy's side of the river — a Chinese pilgrim who loved Harṣa recorded that of all the nations of India "the people of this country alone have not submitted" — and the poem his court carved on a hilltop temple outlived his capital, his dynasty, and the army that destroyed both.”

“A Deccan king built a southern power strong enough to stop the master of all north India at the Narmadā — and in doing so gave the oldest line on India's mental map, the one between north and south, a date and a battlefield. Then the feud he had started in the deeper south came back and burned his capital down around him.”