father dynasty house predecessor successor children biography issue spouse article_title name reign
vijay sen sen sen vijay sen lakshman sen roopsundari & kamaladevi ballal charit by anandabhatta lakshman sen ramadevi ballal sena
 ballal sen বল্লাল সেন 1160 & ndash ; 1179
ballal sena

ballal sen -lrb- ; reign : 1160 -- 1179 -rrb- was the second ruler of the sen dynasty of bengal .
he was the son and successor of vijay sen , and ended the pala empire by defeating govindapala .
ballal sen married ramadevi a princess of the western chalukya empire which indicates that the sen rulers maintained close social contact with south india .
he is the best-known sen ruler and consolidated the kingdom .
he might have completed the conquest of north bengal and also conquered magadha and mithila .
according to a tradition in bengal , ballalsen 's kingdom consisted of five provinces , viz. , banga , barendra , rar , bagri -lrb- possibly a portion of lower bengal -rrb- and mithila .
but neither the two inscriptions that survive from this region , nor the two great literary works , which were attributed to him , viz. , dan sagar and adbhut sagar , allude to his military victories .
on the other hand , these refer to his scholastic activities and social reforms .
ballalsen is associated with the revival of orthodox hindu practices in bengal , in particular with the establishment of the reactionary tradition of kulinism among brahmins and kayasthas .
the brahmins were classified into kulin , Śrotriya , vamsaja and saptasati ; the kayasthas were classified into kulin and maulik , but there is no historical authenticity .
his marriage to ramadevi , the chalukya princess also indicates that the sens maintained the kingdom inherited from his father , which included the present day bangladesh , the whole of west bengal and mithila , i.e. , portions of north bihar .
according to a cryptic passage in adbhut sagar , ballalsen , along with his queen , retired in his old age to the confluence of the ganges and the yamuna leaving his son , lakshman sen , with the task of both maintaining his kingdom and completing his literary work .
according to sen epigraph , ballal was an author .
he wrote `` danasagara '' in 1168 .
and in 1169 , he started but did not finish writing `` adbhutasagara '' .
in `` adbhutasagara '' , it was mentioned that ballal sen conquered mithila while vijay sen was still alive .
besides he introduced the practice of `` kulinism '' .
