South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

NANDSA YUPA INSCRIPTIONS

Malloi before they could effect a junction with the Oxydrakai. At this time the Kshudrakas were occupyingthe territory roughly corresponding to the Bahawalpur State and the Mālavas were their northern neighbours in the occupation of the Ravi-Sutlej Doab, from Multan to Kasur. These were probably the Mālavas of the West referred to in the Mahābhārata,

But apart from the south-eastern and the south-western Punjab, portions of Rājputāna were also occupied by the Mālavas fairly early. At Nāgar, 25 miles south-east of Tonk, a very large number of Mālava coins were discovered, some bearing the names of individual rulers and some having the legend, Mālavānāṁjayaḥ or its equivalent. The former coins are no doubt of the 3rd or the 4th century A. D., but the latter ones are much earlier. Cunningham thought that the earliest of these go back to c. 250 B. C., but Rapson and Smith felt their antiquity could be taken back to only c. 150 B. C. ^[1] The latest writer on the subject, Mr. Allan, thinks that they are not earlier than the second century A. D.^[2] Unfortunately the coins are too small to enable us to form any decisive opinion about the time suggested by their palæography ; but I think that the earliest of the Mālava-gaṇa coins are not later than c. 150 B. C. If such is the case, we shall have to postulate the Mālava occupation of this tract in central Rājputāna in about 150 B. C. ; it may have been necessitated by the pressure of the Greek invasions under Demetrios, Apollodotus and Menander. From the 2nd century A. D. we get ampler proofs of the occupation of this tract by the Mālavas.

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The Nasik inscription No. 10 shows that the Mālavas were a strong power in the territory round Ajmer, and were in a position to harass the Uttamabhadras, who were the allies of the Śakas (Ante, Vol. VIII, p. 78). This inscription does not give the precise location of the Uttamabhadras and the Mālavas, but it says that after relieving the former, Ushavadāta, the son-in-law of Nahapāṇa, bathed in the lake of Pushkara near Ajmer. The Mālavas therefore must have been occupying the tract near Ajmer.^[3] The Mālava-gaṇa-vishaya, mentioned in inscription B, included the territory round about Nāndsā, which is about 75 miles south-south-west of Ajmer and 110 miles east of Nāgar. In 1940 a seal bearing the legend [Mā]lava-janapadasa was found at Rairh in Jaipur State about 56 miles from its capital, which from its characters appears to be as old as the 2nd century B. C. ^[4]

It would thus appear that Mālava-gaṇa-vishaya, referred to in our record, extended over a considerable portion of south-eastern Rājputāna, comprising parts of the States of Udaipur, Jaipur and Tonk and the district of Ajmer. Whether the Mālavas continued to occupy their old homeland in the Southern Punjab at this time is not known. But there is nothing improbable in such being the case, when we remember how the tract is still known as Mālwā.

The expression Mālava-gaṇa-vishaya occurring in our record thus signifies the territory of the Mālava gaṇa or republic. It would therefore appear that the term gaṇa in expressions like Mālava-gaṇa-sthiti-vaśāt cannot mean gaṇanā or counting as Kielhorn had thought. Expressions like Śrī-Mālava-gaṇ-āmnātē and Mālava-gaṇa-sthiti-vaśāl ought therefore to be translated as ‘ according to the era current in the Mālava Republic ’ and ‘ according to the usage of the Mālava Republic.’ There is no justification for the view that these expressions refer to an era founded to commemorate the constitution of the Mālava Republic, that was established in 57 B. C. ^[5] The Mālava republic existed several centuries earlier, as shown above.

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^[1] Smith, Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Vol. I, p. 162.
^[2] Allan, Catalogue of the Coins of Ancient India, p. cvi.
^[3] It is interesting to note that the Mahābhārata, while narrating the conquests of Nakula, states that the Pāṇḍava hero first defeated the Mālavas and their neighbours, and then on return defeated the Utsavasaṁkētas near Pushkara (II 35, 7-8). If we assume that the Utsavasaṁkētas were the same as Uttamabhadras, it would follow that the relative geographical situation of the Uttamabhadras and Mālavas was the same in the 2nd century A. D., as it was in the 3rd century B. C., when probably the Mahābhārata account was written.
^[4] J. N. S. I., Vol. III, p. 48, pl. IV A, No. 6.
^[5] See J. R. A. S., 1913, p. 913 and p. 995 ; and 1914, p. 413 and p. 745.

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