North Indian Inscriptions

RAJOR INSCRIPTION OF MATHANADEVA.

per mensem for every shop ; and fifty leaves from every chôllikâ¹ (of leaves) brought from outside the town.― The inscription concludes with the words ‘the illustrious Mathana,’ representing the signature of the donor.

......In the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XIX. p. 23, I have already had occasion to shew that the date of this inscription, for the expired Vikrama year 1016, corresponds to Saturday, the 14th January, A.D. 960. This date enables us to prove, with a fair amount of certainty, that the sovereign Vijayapâladêva, to whose reign the inscription professes to belong, was a king of Kanauj. In the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II. p. 235, I have attempted to shew that the three kings Vijayapâladêva, Râjyapâladêva, and Trilôchanapâladêva, who are mentioned in the Bengal Asiatic Society’s plate of Trilôchanapâla, edited by me in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XVIII. p. 33 ff., were rulers of Kanauj ; and as that plate, for Trilôchanapâladêva, gives us a date corresponding to the 26th June, A.D. 1027, there would, so far as regards the two dates, be no objection to identifying the Vijayapâladêva of the plate with the Vijayapâladêva of the present inscription (of the year A.D. 960). And such an identification is supported by the fact that the Vijayapâladêva of this inscription is here stated to have been preceded by Kshitipâladêva.

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For we know that a king of this name, also called Mahîpâla and Hêrambapâla, was actually ruling at Kanauj in A.D. 917-18, forty-two years before the date of our inscription.² It is true that, according to the large Sîyaḍôṇî inscription,³ Kshitipâladêva of Kanauj in A.D. 948 had been succeeded (not by Vijayapâladêva, but) by Dêvapâladêva ; but this would seem to be no very formidable objection to the proposed identification. For it might either be said that Vijayapâladêva was a younger brother of Dêvapâladêva, in which case the omission of the elder brother’s name from the present inscription would not be without precedent ; or we might assumption in favour of which it might be urged that each of the three predecessors of Dêvapâladêva— Bhôja, Mahêndrapâla, and Kshitipâla— also bore each at least one other name. For the present, then, I do identity the Kshitipâladêva and Vijayapâladêva of this inscription with the sovereigns of the same names, known to us from the Sîyaḍôṇî inscription and the plate of Trilôchanapâla ; and consider the Mahârâjadhirâja Paramêśvara Mathanadêva, who made the grant here recorded, o have been a feudatory or subordinate of the kings of Kanauj.⁴ Of this Mathanadêva and his predecessor Sâvaṭa nothing is known to me from other inscriptions ; and I have not found elsewhere any mention in line 8 of an inscription at Mâchâḍî, of Vikrama-Saṁvat 1439,⁵ of which a rough photo-lithograph was published in the Archæological Survey of India, Vol. VI. Plate xi.

......Of the localities mentioned, Râjyapura, apparently Mathanadêva’s capital, is of course Râjôr or Râjôgaḍh, or rather Pâranagar, close to the modern village of Râjôr, where the inscription has been found ; and the village of Vyâgrapâṭaka is said to exist still, near Râjôr, under the name of Bâghôr.⁶ The place Vaṁśapôtaka, which gave the name to the bhôga or district to which the village belonged, I am unable to identify. Nor can I identify the places Âmardaka and Chhâttraśiva, which are mentioned in connection with the ascetics to whom the management of the great was entrusted. Chhâttraśiva ought to be looked for in
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......¹ This word I have not met with elsewhere. Fifty leaves appear to be a usual tax ; compare, e.g., Ep. Ind. Vol. II. p. 179, vv. 41 and 42.
......² See Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 171.
......³ See ibid. p. 177, l. 28.
......⁴ It may be mentioned that the fendatories of the kings of Kanauj, whose names occur in the Sîyaḍôṇî inscription, also are styled Mahârâjadhirâjas.— Compare also here a paper on the relation between the kingdom of Kanauj and Gujarât, in Ind. Ant. Vol. III. p. 41 ff.
......⁵ See ibid. Vol. XIX. p. 31, No. 43.
......⁶ See the Prâchînalêkhamâlâ of the Kâvyamâlâ, Vol. I. p. 54, note.