|
The Indian Analyst
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA been recently edited in this journal.[1] But unlike the known records of the family, which are dated usually in the regnal reckoning of the kings issuing the grants in question, the present charter bears the date in the year 198 (written according to the decimal system of writing numerals) of an era. As already indicated above, this era seems to be no other than that used by the Bhauma-Karas of Orissa and their feudatories in dating their charters. The chronology of the imperial family of the Bhauma-Karas has so long remained a disputed problem. But as the exact date of the present record can be determined almost with precision, it seems to throw welcome light on the above problem. We shall see below that the issuer of the charter under discussion flourished about the second quarter of the eleventh century. The epoch of the era in question may thus be assigned to a date in the first half of the ninth century A.C.
The charter was issued by a Bhañja king of Vañjulvaka, whose name is given as Śatrubhañja II[2] alias Tribhuvanakalasa. He is stated to have been the son of Śilābhañja and great-grandson of Vidyādharabhañja. As it stands, the description of the issuer’s ancestry in our grant is defective inasmuch as it does not speak of the king’s grandfather. Under the circumstances, we have to suggest either that the word prapautra is a mistake for pautra so that Vidyādharabhañja was really the grandfather of Śatrubhañja Tribhuvanakalasa or that the name of the grandfather of Śatrubhañja was omitted from the record owing to the inadvertence of the scribe or the engraver. It is unfortunately difficult to be definite on this point in the present state of our knowledge. But the more important fact about this genealogy is that, while Śatrubhañja Tribhuvanakalasa (issuer of the charter under review) and his father Śilābhañja are as yet unknown from any another source, Vidyādharabhañja, grandfather or great-grandfather of Śatrubhañja Tribhuvanakalasa, is already known to us from several of his own records as well as of his son Neṭṭabhañja Kalyāṇakalsa II.[3] I have elsewhere[4] discussed the genealogy and chronology of these Bhañjas. It has been shown how Raṇabhañja, who was the great-grandfather of Vidyādharabhañja, flourished about the middle or the third quarter of the tenth century. I have also shown how the successors of Raṇabhañja, viz., his sons, Neṭṭabhañja Kalyāṇakalasa I and Digbhañja, and Digbhañja’s son Śilābhañja II and grandson Vidyādharabhañja, had all very short reigns so that a Brāhmaṇa named Bhaṭṭa Stambhadēva is known to have served all the four kings while a goldsmith named Durgadēva not only served all of them but also Neṭṭabhañja Kalyāṇakalasa II, son of Vidyādharabhañja. Considering the fact that the active period of the lives of Stambhadēva and Durgadēva probably covered about half a century, the reign of Neṭṭabhañja Kalyāṇakalasa II may be assigned to the first quarter of the eleventh century. Śilābhañja, father of the issuer of the charter under review, may not have ruled. Śatrubhañja Tribhuvanakalasa, as he was the grandson or great-grandson of Vidyādharabhañja, may have flourished about the second quarter of the same century. In any case, the date of our inscription does not appear to be later than the middle of the eleventh century. Certain dates in the latest decades of the second century of the era in question (cf. Dēvānanda’s plate edited about and the grants of the Bhauma-Kara queen Daṇḍimahādēvī) are written with numerical symbols instead of figures according to the decimal system and the use of such symbols does not appear to have survived. considerably long after the end of the tenth century. Moreover the major part of the dominions of the Bhauma-Karas, who ruled from Jaipur for about two centuries (i.e., upto about the year 200 of the era, so that the date of the present charter, year 198, fell about the latest days of Bhauma-Kara rule), appear to have been included in the empire of the Sōmavaṁśīs during the rule of _________________________________________________
[1] Above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 292 ff. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|