South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

TWO SAILODBHAVA GRANTS FROM BANPUR

The charter belongs to king Dharmarāja Mānabhīta of the Śailōdbhava family of Kōṅgōda in modern Orissa and closely resembles the other charters1 of the same king in respect of palaeography, language and orthography. The date of the charter under discussion is uncertain. After the word [Sam*]vat, only the figure 1 can be traced, the writing of the following portion being damaged in the plate.It is therefore doubtful whether the date is year 1 or any other regnal year between 10 and 19. The Śailōdbhava king Dharmarāja Mānabhīta seems to have flourished about the close of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth (circa 695-730 A.C.)2.

The draft of the present charter closely follows that of the Kondedda grant issued by king Dharmarāja Mānabhīta in his thirtieth regnal year. The eighteen verses forming the introduction of our charter as well as the lengthy prose passage introducing the king as kuśalī (lines 1-40) are the same as the corresponding part of the Kondedda grant (lines 1-47), with slight changes (including minor mistakes) in the text and the names of the places whence the charters were issued. Verses 1-11 of the record dealing with the predecessors of the reigning monarch are merely a selection from the introductory stanzas found in the records (cf. the Bāṇpur plates edited above) of his father Ayaśōbhīta II Madhyamarāja. Verses 12-18 describe the achievements of Dharmarāja Mānabhīta himself. It is well known that only one of these verses (verse 15) gives a valuable historical information. It seems to say how Dharmarāja had an elder brother named Mādhava (i.e., Mādhavavarman probably named after his grandfather) who began to bear ill will against his younger brother as soon as he ascended the throne, how Dharmarāja defeated this Mādhava at the battle of Phāsikā, how Mādhava thereupon took shelter under a king named Tīvara, and how both Mādhava and Tīvara were defeated by Dharmarāja in a battle fought at the foot of the Vindhyas. This Tīvara may have been a later member of the Pāṇḍuvaṁśa of South Kōsala.3 Verse 16 discloses the king’s secondary name Mānabhīta.

The prose passage following the introductory verses in our inscription refers to the place whence the charter was issued. The name of the place is doubtful but may be Āsiliḍa.or Siliḍa. The king is here described as a devout worshipper of Mahēśvara (Śiva) and as devoted to his parents. Another interesting passage says that he was the son’s son (i.e., grandson) of one who took an avabhṛitha bath after the Aśvamēdha sacrifice (aśvamēdh-āvabhṛitha-snāna-nirvaritita-sūnōs=tanayaḥ) apparently referring to the performance of the horse sacrifice by his grandfather Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II Śrīnivāsa, already discussed above in connection with the Bāṇpur plates of Ayaśōbhīta II Madhyamarāja, father of Dharmarāja Mānabhīta.4 The passage recording the grant in the inscription under review is defective. The engraver had at first omitted a lengthy passage mentioning the donee, the gift land and the actual donor and later squeezed only the important words and names from the omitted passage in the limited space. The defective description suggests that the real donor of the grant was the queen Kalyāṇadēvī (or Śrīkalyāṇaº) and that her grant was endorsed by the king. The gift land consisted of 3 measures styled ṭimpīra in a locality called Suvarṇaralōṇḍī situated in the Thōraṇa vishaya and

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^[1] The Kondedda grant of the 30th regnal year (above, Vol. XIX, pp. 267-70), the Nivinā grant possibly of the 9th regnal year (above, Vol. XXI, pp. 38-41) and the Puri plates of a doubtful date (J.B.O.R.S., Vol. XVI, pp. 178 ff.). Bhandarkar’s reading of the dates of the Puri and Kondedda plates is wrong (see List, Nos. 2040-41; Successors of the Sātavāhanas, p. 401).
^[2] He ruled at least up to his 30th regnal year.
^[3] This Tīvara cannot be identified with Mahāśiva Tīvara of the Pāṇḍuvaṁśa as the latter flourished in the sixth century (circa 565-80 A. C. ; see I. H. Q., Vol. XIX, p. 144). Dharmarāja’s rule (covering not less than 30 years according to the Kondedda grant) can hardly be placed earlier than the last quarter of the seventh century because, as indicated above, his grandfather performed the Aśvamēdha before his 13th regnal year falling sometime after 619 A.C. and ruled for at least 50 years (cf. The date of the Cuttack Museum plates) and his father ruled for at least 26 years (cf. the date of the Parikud plates).
^[4] The Parikud plates suggest that Madhyamarāja took part in the performance of his father’s horse-sacrifice.