#Harshavardhana

“Every five years Harṣa emptied his entire treasury to a vast crowd at Prayāga, down to his own jewels and clothes, and finished the festival bowing in a worn garment borrowed from his sister — and the empire that could afford this died with him within a year, because it was never a machine, only a man.”

“The last ruler to hold most of northern India together before the Turkish conquests was also a working playwright and a scheduled philanthropist — and he is the only ancient Indian king we can check from three independent directions: his court poet's biography, a Chinese pilgrim's records, and his own hand.”