North Indian Inscriptions

SPURIOUS SUDI PLATES.

king named Amôghavarsha. Now, here there is a plain anachronism ; for, whereas, according to the Hosûr and Nâgamaṅagala grants, Śivamâra’s son came at least fifty years before A.D. 776-77, the earliest Amôghavarsha is the Râshṭrakûṭa king Amôghavarsha I., who commenced to reign in A.D. 814-15.

......Śivamâra’s son’s son was named, according to the Hosûr and Nâgamaṅagala grants, Śrîpurusha-Pṛithuvî-Koṅganṇi ; and they also imply that he had the birudas of Bhîmakôpa and Râjakêsarin : but some genuine stone inscriptions disclose the fact that his real proper name was Muttarasa ; and Śrîpurusha, therefore, must also be taken as a biruda. The Hosûr and Nâgamaṅgala grants both give him the title of Mahârâja. Mr. Rice says that his wife was Śrîjâ ; but the passage, in the Nâgamaṅgala grant, on which this is based, says in reality that the grant was made by the Mahârâjâdhirâja and Paramêśvara, the glorious Jasahita : whether this denotes Śrîpurusha, or someone else, I am not present prepared to say. The Hosûr and Nâgamaṅgala grants both describe him as having his victorious camp at the town of Mânyapura ; which place, whatever it may be, is certainly not the Mânyakhêṭa of the Râshṭrakûṭas. And they give for him dates in A.D. 762 and 776-77 ; the later record also stating A.D. 776-77 was the fiftieth year of his reign. The Udayêndiram grant, however, which can only be interpreted as naming him as Mârasiṁha (or else as not mentioning him at all), establishes a considerably later date ; it makes him (or else some otherwise unknown brother or cousin) the father of Râjasiṁha, otherwise called Hastimalla, who received the Bâṇa territory from the Chôḷa king Parântaka I. ; and it thus places him (from either points of view) only one generation before A. D. 920 or closely thereabouts.¹

......I will take next certain internal evidence in the Merkara record. It mentions, without naming him, the minister of a king Akâlavarsha,² and says, as far as the text can be properly construed at all, that in A.D. 466 he acquired from Avinîta-Koṅgaṇi a grant for a Jain temple at the city of Taḷavanagara ; at any rate, it asserts that there was a king named Akâlavarsha in or shortly before A.D. 466. Mr. Rice says that no doubt a Râshṭrakûṭa king is intended ;³ and in this I quite agree. But, on the assumption that every Kṛishṇa of the Râshṭrakûṭa family must have borne the biruda Akâlavarsha, he goes on to identify this Akâlavarsha with a Râshṭrakûṭa king Kṛishṇa, whose son Indra is said, in the Western Châlukya traditions of the eleventh century A.D., to have been conquered by Jayasiṁha, I., the progenitor of the whole Chalukya stock,⁴ and who, in accordance with this statement, is to allotted to about the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century, A.D.,— i.e. to a period that approximates to the date put forward in the Merkara grant ; and here it is impossible to endorse his views. In the first place, the existence of this early Râshṭrakûṭa king Kṛishṇa is purely legendary, and is undoubtedly imaginary. The Western Chalukya records themselves contain no mention of him ; and they do not record any specific victories at all by Jayasiṁha I., who seems, in fact, to have not enjoyed any regal power, and to be quoted simply as the grandfather or Pulikêśin I., the founder of the dynasty. The Râshṭrakûṭa records do not mention him. And, though certain coins have been obtained from the Nâsik District, which do give the name of a king Kṛishṇa,⁵ and may be allotted to the period in question just as well as to somewhat later one, still they contain nothing that refers them to the Râshṭrakûṭa dynasty ; and my opinion now is that, in all probability, they are coins of king Kṛishṇa, father of Śaṁkaragaṇa, whose existence has recently been brought to notice by a copper-plate grant from Sâṅkhêḍâ in the Baroda State,6 and that this person is an early Kalachuri king. The existence of an early Râshṭrakûṭa king Kṛishṇa, referable to approximately the period to which the Merkara grant pretends to belong, depends upon nothing but the tradition which first appears in the eleventh century A.D., after
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......¹ See page 165 above, and note 1.
......² See the text as given in Coorg Inscriptions, p. 3.
......³ id. Introd. p. 9.
......⁴ e.g. Ind. Ant. Vol. XVI. p. 17.
......⁵ Ind. Ant. Vol. XIV. p. 68.
......⁶ Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II. p. 22.