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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA From the above discussion it follows that Bharatabala was a contemporary of Narēndrasēna who is known to have flourished about A. D. 435-470.[1]The evidence of the script employed in the record is, as has been shown above,[2] in perfect agreement with this date. Taking the second year of Bharatabala’s reign to correspond approximately with A.D. 460, and working at the rate of twenty years per reign-period for the foregoing three rulers, we arrive at A.D. 399-400 as the approximate date of Jayabala’s rising to power. This roughly synchronizes with the momentous events taking place in the two big royal houses of the Guptas and the Vākāṭakas, when the latter, after suffering a setback at the hands of Samudragupta, were re-asserting themselves, the mighty Gupta empire was heading to a fall, and the Gupta-Vākāṭaka relations were being cemented by a matrimonial alliance inasmuch as Chandragupta II’s daughter Prabhāvatiguptā had been married to Rudrasēna II. The confusion might have afforded Jayabala an opportunity of assuming authority and stabilizing his position as a local chief.
From the way the ancestral line is recounted in the present charter, it appears that the Pāṇḍava dynasty of Mēkalā started with Jayabala himself. It further appears that his successors were able not only to hold the territory he had mastered, but also to annex much more to it, at the same time acquiring greater authority. A measure as to the extent of the kingdom under Bharatabala is afforded by the mention in this inscription of an Uttara-rāshṭra within Mēkalā, which presupposes a fairly large realm, partitioned at least into two big well-defined divisions, one in the north and the other in the south, each in its turn comprising a number of districts and sub-divisions. Thus we may assume that the kingdom of Mēkalā was divided into two provinces, one called Uttara-rāshṭra and the other Dakshiṇa-rāshṭra, that the river Son in its upper reaches within the Rewa State possibly formed a natural boundary-line between the two, and that the whole of Mēkalā comprised the south-eastern part of the Rewa State, portions in the north of the Bilāspur District and some area in the east of the Mandlā District. The record does not mention the place of its issue, nor have we any means to ascertain as to where exactly the seat of government was located. We already know of a line of Pāṇḍava kings riling in Southern Kōsala. There has been some controversy as to their age, but recently Prof. Mirashi has shown that the king Tīvaradēva of that lineage flourished in the second quarter of the sixth century.[3]. Tīvaradēva’s grandfather, Indrabala, or the latter’s father, Udayana, thus becomes roughly contemporaneous with Bharatabala. The two Pāṇḍava houses were most probably related to each other. Of Bharatabala’s queen Lōkaprakāśā, the present inscription informs that her native place was Kōsalā. It is a pity that no particulars of her parentage are given. Possibly she was a princess of the Pāṇḍava family of Kōsalā. It may, in passing, be observed that the Pāṇḍavas of Mēkalā had the Parivrājaka Mahārājas and the Mahārājas of Uchchakalpa as their neighbours in the north west. There is no epigraphical evidence as to who the rulers in Mēkalā were prior to the Pāṇḍavas of the present document. The last Dr. K. P. Jayaswal has tackled this problem with the help of the Puranic material which he has used in a sifting manner. According to his interpretation of the Puranic texts, Mēkalā, was then a province in the Vākāṭaka empire and was ruled over by the Pallavas whom he considers to be relatives of the Vākāṭakas. The following quotations from his work embody his view on the subject :─ “ In Mēkalā, there flourished seven rulers in seventy years,i.e., from about 275 A.D. to 345 A. D. It seems that this portion was acquired in the time of Vindhyaśakti. The rulers of Mēkalā who were a branch of the Vindhyaka dynasty, were kings of Andhradēśa.”[4] “The Pallavas are described in the Purāṇas under the designation ‘the Āndhra kings’── ‘ the kings of Andhradēśa’, as ruling over Mēkalā with Andhra, and are specified as ‘the descendants (santati) of the Vindhyakas,’ i.e., Vindhyaśakti.”[5] “A branch of the Imperial _____________________
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