Harsha became emperor at 16 after his brother was betrayed and killed
In the early 600s a 16-year-old prince inherited a crisis: his brother-in-law killed, his sister imprisoned, his brother murdered by a supposed ally. Harshavardhana rescued his sister, united the fractured kingdoms of northern India, and built a court so cosmopolitan that a famous Chinese pilgrim wrote glowingly of his fairness.
After the Gupta Empire collapsed in the mid-sixth century, northern India splintered into many small states. The Vardhana family of Thanesar, also called Sthanvesvara, began extending its reach under Prabhakaravardhana, who died in 605. His elder son Rajyavardhana took the throne, and Harsha, born on 4 June 590, was the younger son. One seventh or eighth century Buddhist text places the family in the Vaishya class, a claim some writers support.
Tragedy made Harsha king. His sister Rajyashri had married the Maukhari ruler Grahavarman, who was defeated and killed by King Devagupta of Malwa, and Rajyashri was taken captive. Rajyavardhana marched out and beat Devagupta, but Shashanka, king of Gauda in Bengal, arrived posing as a friend while secretly allied with Malwa, and murdered him. Harsha, now on the throne, set out for revenge, though the campaign against Shashanka proved inconclusive. His first duty was finding his sister, who had fled into the forests; he reached her just as she was about to burn herself to death.
In April 606 representatives of the small states from Punjab to central India crowned him emperor with the title Maharajadhiraja. At his peak his realm covered much of northern and northwestern India, and he made Kanyakubja, today's Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, his capital. Southern expansion failed: the Chalukya emperor Pulakeshin II beat him on the Narmada in the winter of 618 to 619, and a treaty fixed that river as the border.
Peace and prosperity drew scholars, artists and pilgrims to his court. The Chinese traveller Xuanzang, who called him Shiladitya, praised his justice and generosity and named him the mightiest ruler in the north. The poet Banabhatta wrote his biography, the Harshacharita, which describes a palace with a two-storeyed white mansion guarded by wall and moat, and supplies most of what is known of his youth. Harsha reigned until his death in 647.
Source: Harsha
