North Indian Inscriptions

SPURIOUS SUDI PLATES.

Certain statements in the records of the Kadamba king Mṛigêśavarman, and of the Western Chalukya kings Maṅgalêśa, Pulikêśin II., and Vinayâditya, do prove that in early times,— during at least the sixth and seventh centuries A.D.,— there really was a reigning Gaṅga family in Western India. But the references are all impersonal ; they do not give the names of any individual Gaṅgas. And, while I am ready and eager to accept any such names, for the period in question and for any earlier one, as may be proved by authentic evidence, I cannot fall in with Mr. Rice’s view of the matter, which is that, unless I can enlighten him as to who the real Gaṅgas of the period were, I am bound to accept those whom he names from the spurious records that he has produced.¹ I do not deny the possibility of those records containing here and there a germ of truth ; in fact,— as I will shew,— two instances in point can now be quoted to that effect. But the records themselves are spurious, and were not even concocted in the early times to which they refer themselves. The simple contrast, with each other, of the dates which they purport to furnish for Harivarman and Avinîta-Kaṅgaṇi,— and still more the contrast of those dates with the period which they assert for Śrîpurusha-Pṛithuvî-Koṅgaṇi,— is sufficient to prove, either that those dates are false, or else that the pedigree is imperfect, and, consequently, that we are not even in possession of veracious facts recited in spurious documents. And I protest against the fabrication of imaginary history by adopting, wholesale, statements which rest solely upon such utterly unauthentic bases ; against dragging in similar spurious records to substantiate them ;² and against complicating real history, by, for instance,³ taking the undoubted fact that there was an early Kṛishṇavarman in the Kadamba family, and then using the assertion of the spurious grants that Mâdhava II.,— referable, according to them, to about A.D. 400 to 425,— married a daughter of a Kadamba Kṛishṇavarman, to establish for the genuine Kṛishṇavarman a date which is considerably too early, and is misleading in a variety of connected matters.

......As matters stand at present,— out of the names mentioned in the spurious records, the earliest authentic one, in respect of which we have certainly, is that of Śrîpurusha-Pṛithuvi-Koṅgaṇi, or, as he may be more appropriately and shortly called, Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa, who is referable, no doubt, to what is to be called the Western Gaṅga lineage, and who is to
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taking only such as have been already published, and even then excluding those in favour of which any doubt whatever may exist, we have the following from other parts of India :— From Bihâr, of Samudragupta, purporting to be dated in the year 9 (Gupta Inscriptions, p. 254) ; from Kâṭhiâwâḍ, of Dharasêna II., Śaka-Saṁvat 400 (Ind. Ant. Vol X. p. 277), and of Jâikadȇva, Vikrama-Saṁvat 794 (id. Vol. XII. p. 151) ; from Kaira, the Baroda State, and Broach, of Dadda II., Śaka-Saṁvat 400, and 417 ((id. Vol. XII. p. 61 ; Vol. XVII. p. 183 ; Vol. XIII. p.116) ; from Khândêsh, of Pulikêśin I. or II., Śaka-Saṁvat 310 (id. Vol. IX. p. 293) ; from somewhere in the Kanarese country, of Pulikêśin I., Śaka-Saṁvat 411 (id. Vol. VII. p. 209) ; from Ratnâgiri, of Pulikêśin II., of his fifth year (id. Vol. XIV. p. 330) ; from Dhârwâr, of Vikramâditya I., Śaka-Saṁvat 532 (id. Vol VII. p. 217) and the grant of Bûtuga now edited ; and from Udayêndiram in the North Arcot district of the Madras Presidency, the grant of Nandivarman (id. Vol. VIII. p. 167, and page 142 above). But Mysore, with some neighbouring parts, has been especially productive of them, including some of the most barefaced specimens. Thus, in addition to the nine Western Gaṅga grants, we have, from Coimbatore, the grant of Ravidatta (Ind. Ant. Vol. XVIII. p. 362) ; and from Mysore itself, the Muḍyanûr grant of Malladêva-Nandivarman, purporting to be dated Śaka-Saṁvat 261 (Ind. Ant. Vol. XV. p. 172), the Bangalore grant of Vîra-Noṇamba, Śaka-Saṁvat 366 (id. Vol. VIII. p. 94) ; the Hosûr grant which purports to give the name of a daughter, Ambêrâ, of Pulikêśin II. (id. Vol. VIII. p. 96, with a lithograph in Vol. IX. p. 304) ; and the Anantpur or Gauja, Bêgûr, Bhîmankaṭṭi or Tîrthahaḷḷi, Kuppagadde, and Sorab grants of Janamêjaya, which pretend to be nearly five thousand years old (id. Vol. I. pp. 375, 377 ; Vol. III. p. 268 ; Vol. IV p. 233 ; Vol. VIII. p. 91 ; and Mysore Inscriptions, pp. 232, 238, 251).
......¹ See Coorg Inscriptions, Introd. p. 10.— I might just as reasonably attempt to name the unnamed leaders of the Chôla, Pâṇḍya, Kêraḷa, Kaḷabhra, Chêra, and other families of the period.
......² e.g. the spurious Coimbatore grant, which I have disposed of above (page 163, note 2), and the spurious Muḍyanûr grant, purporting to have been issued by a Bâṇa king named Malladêva-Nandivarman in A.D. 338 (Ind. Ant. Vol. XV. p. 172), which Mr. Rice has quoted (Inscriptions at Śravaṇa-Beḷgoḷa, Introd. p. 44) as proving the existence of Bâṇa kings in the beginning of the third century A.D. This Bâṇa grant is betrayed by, amongst other things, the use of the later form of the kh, which was subsequent to A.D. 804.
......³ Mysore Inscriptions, pp. xxxvii., xxxix., and Coorg Inscriiiptions, Introd. p. 2, note 5.