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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA KALIDINDI GRANT OF EASTERN CHALUKYA RAJARAJA I The text of the present inscription falls into four divisions : I. the genealogical account of the Eastern Chāḷukyas up to Rājarāja I ; II. the narration of the circumstances in which the grant was made ; III. the description of the boundaries of the village which is the subject of the present grant, and IV. the imprecatory verses together perhaps with the names of the author of the praśasti and the scribe.
I . This part further divides itself two sub-sections :─(a) legendary, and (b) historical. (a) The legendary genealogy opens with Nārāyaṇa, Brahmā, Atri, Chandra, etc., and proceeds without a break up to Udayana, the son of Śatānīka. Then comes a hiatus which the composer of the genealogy bridges up with fifty-nine nameless kings who are said to have ruled at Ayōdhyā. The sixtieth, Vijayāditya by name, migrated to Dakshiṇāpatha, where, in an encounter with Trilōchana-Pallava, he perished. His posthumous son, Vishṇuvardhana, however, restored the fortunes of his family and established his authority over the country between the Narmadā and the Sētu. The first point that has to be considered here is the origin of the legendary genealogy. No traces of it are to be found in the numerous records of the Eastern Chāḷukya monarchs till we come to the time of Vimalāditya’s accession. Certain features of this legendary genealogy are found in some contemporary records of the Western Chāḷukya kings of Kalyāṇi.[1] The reign of Vimalāditya marks an important stage in the development of the praśasti of the Eastern Chāḷukya kings. The records of the early monarchs of the dynasty from Kubja-Vishṇuvardhana to Guṇaga-Vijayāditya III embody, with some small variations, the praśasti found in the inscriptions of the Bādāmi Chāḷukyas, and mention generally the immediate ancestors of the donor without giving any particulars about them. With the accession of Guṇaga-Vijayāditya III there sets in a change ; while the preamble retains its original form, the part relating to the donor and his parentage undergoes a change. The names of his immediate ancestors yield place to an elaborate list of all the past kings of the dynasty, in which are set forth the most notable of their achievements, the order of their succession and the exact duration of their reigns. With the passing of each generation, the list increases in length and the praśasti is soon transformed into a family chronicle. This form was adhered to for a long time ; and no further change is perceptible in the charters of the subsequent period until the accession of Vimalāditya, when, as pointed out already, a further change was introduced in the form of a long Puranic or mythical pedigree in place of the short preamble embodying their lineage and gōtra. The circumstances under which this change was introduced are not known. It is not, however, unlikely that it was due to the Chōḷa influence on the Eastern Chāḷukya kings since the restoration to power of the main line in 999-1000 A. C. The latter had political as well as matrimonial relations with the Chōḷas. Another point that deserves consideration is the historicity of Vijayāditya, the ancestor from whom the Chāḷukyas are said to have descended in the later Eastern Chāḷukya records. It is believed by some scholars that this Vijayāditya was a contemporary of Trilōchana-Pallava and Karikāla-Chōḷa ;[2] but the evidence on which the belief is based is quite late and untrustworthy. The Chāḷukyas of Bādāmi, the parent stock from which the other families branched off, do not refer to Vijayāditya as the progenitor of their race. They trace, on the contrary, their origin to Jayasiṁhavallabha of whom very little is known. Similarly the Chāḷukyas of Kalyāṇi make no mention of Vijayāditya in this context. The Kauṭhēm grant, no doubt, mentions Vijayāditya, not, however, as the founder of the family, but as one of the two additional names or epithets _________________________________________________
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