South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

SAUGOR STONE INSCRIPTION OF SANKARAGANA

all these reason I am inclined to look with suspicious on the statements in the Malkāpuram inscription about the early Śaiva pontiffs of the Gōḷakī maṭha.^[1] Even if Vāmadēva was a Śaiva pontiff, the use of imperial titles in connection with him would be difficult to explain, for we have not till now come across a single instance of the assumption of such titles by spiritual teachers.

            An insuperable objection to the identification of Vāmadēva with Vāmaśambhu is that the former is mentioned with the same imperial titles in the present inscription which is nearly three centuries earlier than the time of Karṇa whose rājaguru Vāmaśambhu is supposed to be. The form Vāmarājadēva of his name which occurs here plainly indicates that he was a king and not a Śaiva pontiff. In a subsequent record the name Vāmarājadēva was probably contracted into Vāmadēva which seems to have been copied in all later inscriptions.^[2]

            When did this Vāmarāja flourish ? Though the present inscription states that Śaṅkaragaṇa meditated on his feet, it would be rash to assert that he was his immediate predecessor ; for we find the expression Vāmadēva-pād-ānudhyāta repeated in connection with as many as five other kings. The history of Ḍāhala or modern Bāghelkhaṇḍ after the overthrow of the Uchchakalpa and Parivrājaka Mahārājas is enveloped in obscurity. Towards the close of the sixth and in the beginning of the seventh century A. D. the Kalachuris were ruling over an extensive empire comprising Malwa, Gujarāt, Koṅkaṇ and Mahārāshṭra from their capital Mahishmatī. After the defeat of Buddharāja by Pulakēśin II they seem to have remained for some time in obscurity ;^[3] for we have no information about the successors of Buddharāja. As the Chālukyas and thereafter the Rāshṭrakūṭas were supreme in the south from the seventh century onwards, the Kalachuris seem to have turned their attention to the north where there was no great king to check their advance after the death of Harsha in A. D. 647. Vāmadēva seems to be the founder of this northern Kalachuri power. He overran Bundelkaṇḍ and Bāghelkhaṇḍ and established himself at Kālañjara, the impregnable fort in the Banda District, 90 miles west-south-west of Allahabad. This fort has from very ancient times been sacred to Śiva. It is mentioned as one of the nine holy places in north India. In the fifth century A. D. it was in the occupation of Udayana, the founder of the Sōmavaṁśī dynasty, who was probably a feudatory of the Maukharis.^[4] The subsequent history of

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^[1] As shown before, Śaktiśambhu and his disciple Kīrtiśambhu are probably identical with Śaktiśiva and Kīrtiśiva. The latter’s successor Vimalaśiva is also mentioned in a Kalachuri record. Other names do not agree.
^[2] Vāmadēva was not an ancestor of the Chandēllas. It may therefore be asked how his name is mentioned in connection with the Chandēlla prince Trailōkyavarman in a record of his feudatory Kumārapālavarman of Karkarēḍi. The ancestors of Kumārapālavarman were the feudatories of the Kalachuris. Two of their records, which have been published, naturally contain the expression Vāmadēva-pād-ānudhyāta in connection with the name of their suzerain. The drafter who wrote the aforementioned grant of Kumārapālavarman has blindly copied the expression from the earlier records of the family and used it to describe the Chandēlla suzerain. I t may be noted that he has done the same in regard to the title Trikaliṅgādhipati also which is not met with in the records of the Chandēllas themselves. The identification of Vāmadēva was discussed by me in an article entitled ‘ Vāmadēva. An Early Kalachuri King’ in the F. W. Thomas Festschrift Volume, pp. 152 ff. Dr. D. C. Sircar has recently objected to the identification of Vāmarājadēva with Vāmadēva on the ground that ‘ it is difficult to believe that Vāmarājadēva of the Saugor record was remembered after full three centuries by Karṇa and his successors who called themselves Vāmadēva-pād-ānudhyāta in their records.’ (New Ind. Ant., Vol. III, pp. 36-7). In this connection we must remember that the expression Vāmadēva-pād-ānudhyāta generally occurs in the copper-plate grants of the Kalachuris of Tripurī. The earliest known official grant of the Kalachuris of Tripurī is the Benares copper-plate inscription of Karṇa. In the absence of the grants of earlier kings it is not safe to assume that Vāmadēva was forgotten in the meanwhile.
^[3] They seem to have tried to rehabilitate themselves during the reign of the Chālukya Vinayāditya, but the attempt was not attended by success and they were reduced to the same state of servitude as the Āḷuvas, Gaṅgas and others, who had already become the hereditary servants of the Chālukyas.
^[4] A stone inscription of this king recording the erection of a temple of Vishṇu has been found at Kālañjara. Cunningham, A. S. I. R., Vol. XXI, p. 40 and pl. IX. His descendants removed to Chhattīsagarh where we find them ruling in the sixth and seventh centuries A. D.