Gopala I

Gopala (ruled c. 750s–770s CE) was the founder of the Pala Dynasty of Bengal region of the Indian Subcontinent. The last morpheme of his name Pala means "protector" and was used as an ending for the names of all the Pala monarchs. Pala does not suggest or indicate any ethnic or caste considerations of the Pala dynasty. He came to power around 750 CE in Gaur after being elected by a group of regional chieftains.

Origins

There are no contemporary sources of information about Gopala's life: he is known only through the later literary references and genealogies in inscriptions.

The name of his father was Vapyata, and his grandfather Dayitavishnu. A eulogy on the Khalimpur copper plate of his son Dharmapala describes his father Vapyata as a Khanditarati or "killer of enemies", and his grandfather Dayitavishnu as Sarva-vidyavadata ("all-knowing" in the sense "highly educated"). The later texts of the Pala period, such as Ramacharita, mention the Pala rulers as the kings descended from the solar dynasty. However, these lack credibility, and seem to be attempts to cover up their relatively humble origins.

Shriya Saran

Shriya Saran (pronounced [ʂrɪjaː saːɽɳ]; born 11 September 1982), also known by the mononym Shriya, is an Indian film actress, model and presenter. She has acted in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi language films, as well as a few films in English, Malayalam and Kannada.

Saran was born in Dehradun and spent most of her childhood in Haridwar. In 2001, her dance master gave her the opportunity to appear in Renoo Nathan's debut music video "Thirakti Kyun Hawa", which brought Saran to the attention of many Indian filmmakers.

Although Saran aspired to become a well-known dancer, she was rather offered a leading role. Thus, Saran made her film debut in 2001 with the Telugu film Ishtam, and had her first commercial success with Santhosham (2002). She subsequently appeared in several more Telugu films, while making in-roads in the Hindi and Tamil film industries. In 2007, Saran starred in Sivaji, the highest-grossing Tamil film at that time. She also gained critical acclaim for her role in the 2007 Bollywood film Awarapan. In 2008, Saran played the lead role in her first English film, the American-Indian co-production The Other End of the Line. Her following projects included popular films such as Kanthaswamy (2009) in Tamil, and Pokkiri Raja (2010) in Malayalam, her roles in which established her as one of the leading actresses in the South Indian film industries. In 2012, she was cast in the British-Canadian film Midnight's Children under the direction of Deepa Mehta, based on Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name, for which she received international critical acclaim. She achieved further commercial success by starring in films such as Pavitra (2013) and Chandra (2013). In 2014, Shriya Saran starred in the critically acclaimed Telugu film Manam, which she received accolades for her performance.