About the middle of the 8th century Magadha was conquered by Gopala, who had made himself master in Bengal, and founded the imperial dynasty known as the Palas of Bengal.
Gopala himself built a great monastery at Udandapura, or Otantapuri, which has been identified by Sir Alexander Cunningham with the city of Behar, where the later Pala kings established their capital.
Possibly the growth of the legend of Krishna - his being reared at Go-kula (cow-station); his tender relations to the gopis, or cowherdesses, of Vrindavana; his epithets Gopala," the cowherd,"and Govinda," cow-finder,"actually explained as" recoverer of the earth "in the great epic, and the go-loka, or" cow-world,"assigned to him as his heavenly abode - may have some connexion with the sacred character ascribed to the cow from early times.
The favourite object of adoration with adherents of these sects is Krishna with his mate - but not the devoted friend and counsellor of the Pandavas and deified hero of epic song, nor the ruler of Dvaraka and wedded lord of Rukmini, but the juvenile Krishna, Govinda or Bala Gopala, "the cowherd lad," the foster son of the cowherd Nanda of Gokula, taken up with his amorous sports with the Gopis, or wives of the cowherds of Vrindavana (Brindaban,near Mathura on the Yamuna), especially his favourite mistress Radha or Radhika.
Vallabha, the son of a Telinga Brahman, after extensive journeyings all over India, settled at Gokula near Mathura, and set up a shrine with an image of Krishna Gopala.