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Harsha or Harshavardhana (हर्षवर्धन) or "Harsha vardhan" (590–647) was an Indian (Hindu in earlier...

Harsha or Harshavardhana (हर्षवर्धन) or "Harsha vardhan" (590–647) was an Indian (Hindu in earlier life, became a Buddhist later) emperor who ruled Northern India for forty one years. He was the son of Prabhakar Vardhan and younger brother of Rajyavardhan, a king of Thanesar. At the height of his power his kingdom spanned the Punjab, Gujarat, Bengal, Orissa and the entire Indo-Gangetic plain North of the Narmada River. After the downfall of the Gupta Empire in the middle of the sixth century C.E., North India reverted to small republics and small monarchical states. Harsha united the small republics from Punjab to Central India, and they, at an assembly, crowned Harsha king in April 606 AD when he was merely 16 years old. The origin of Harsha's ancestors is obscure and little is known about them. According to Banabhatta's Harshaćárita they were descended from a certain Pushpabhuti who founded and ruled the kingdom of Sthanvisvara or modern Thanesar, an ancient Hindu pilgrimage centre and one of the 51 Shaktipeeth's, now a small town in the vicinity of the newly created Kurukshetra in the state of Haryana north of Delhi. The name Pushpabhuti is the key to Harsha's origins and the