HARSHA, or HARSHAVARDHANA (fl. A.D. 606-648)  , an Indian king who ruled northern India as paramount monarch for over forty years . The events of his reign are related by Hsi.ian Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, and by Bana, a Brahman author . He was the son of a raja of Thanesar, who gained prominence by successful wars against the Huns, and came to the throne in A.D . 6o6, though he was only crowned in 612 . He devoted himself to a scheme of conquering the whole of India, and carried on wars for thirty years with success, until (A.D . 620) he came in contact with Pulakesin II., the greatest of the Chalukya dynasty, who made himself lord of the south, as Harsha was lord of the north . The Nerbudda river formed the boundary between the two empires . In the latter years of his reign Harsha's sway over the whole basin of the Ganges from the Himalayas to the Nerbudda was undisputed . After thirty-seven years of war he set himself to emulate Asoka and became a patron of art and literature . He was the last native monarch who held paramount power in the north prior to the Mahommedan conquest; and was succeeded by an era of petty states . See Bana, Sri-harsha-charita, trans . Cowell and Thomas (1897); Ettinghausen, Harsha Vardhana (Louvain, 1906) .