North Indian Inscriptions

RECORDS OF THE SOMAVAMSI KINGS OF KATAK.

......The general result of the palæographic considerations, taken altogether, is, that these records cannot possibly be placed before A.D. 900. They may belong to any later period. But, on the whole, I should say that the characters are of the eleventh century, and that the kings mentioned in them are to be placed somewhere between A.D. 1000 and 1100.

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......The palæographic considerations compel us to discard a somewhat tempting identification which was made by General Sir Alexander Cunningham, and the adoption of which was contemplated by myself before I came to look fully into the matter. A copper-plate grant from Râjim in the Râypur District, Central Provinces (Gupta Inscriptions, p. 291), gives us the names of Indrabala, of the Pâṇḍuvaṁśa or race of Pâṇḍu,─ his son Nannadêva,─ and Nannadêva’s adopted son, the Râja Tîvaradêva or Mahâśiva-Tîvararâja, a feudatory prince of the Kôsala country. An inscription at Sirpur in the same district (Ind. Ant. Vol. XVIII. p. 179), which supplies the name of Indrabala’s father, Udayana, and tells us that he was of the lineage of the Moon,─ (to which the race of Pâṇḍu did belong),─ carries the genealogy two steps further, through Chandragupta, son of Nannadêva, and through Chandragupta’s son Harshagupta, to a prince named Bâlârjuna-Śivagupta, son of Harshagupta, who evidently held the feudatory government of the territory round Sirpur. And Sir Alexander Cunningham (Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. XVII. pp. 17, 85, 87) identified this Bâlârjuna-Śivagupta with Śivagupta, father of Mahâ-Bhavagupta I. ; and also, accepting, like the other writers who have been mentioned above, the local annals, and failing, like them, to see that Janamêjaya and Yayâti were, not feudatories of Mahâ-Bhavagupta I. and Mahâ-Śivagupta, but those persons themselves, he arrived, from the date which the local annals purport to give for Yayâti-Kêsari, at the dates of A.D. 319 or 325 for Indrabala,─ A.D. 350 for Nannadêva,─ A.D. 375 for Tîvaradêva and Chandragupta,─ A.D. 400 for Harshagupta,─ A.D. 425 for Śivagupta,─ A.D. 450 for Mahâ-Bhavagupta I. and his supposed contemporary Janamêjaya,─ and A.D. 475 for Mahâ-Śivagupta and his supposed contemporary Yayâti. The erroneous nature of the dates thus arrived at has already been shewn, so far as the Śivagupta of the present charters and his successors are concerned. We are dealing now only with the identification of the two Śivaguptas.

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Its appeared to be a very plausible one ; for, Mahâ-Bhavagupta I., and his son and grandson, also possessed the Kôsala country ; and the absence of the prefix mahâ, and of a second fanciful name, in the designation of his father, seems to suggest that a sudden rise in the status of the family occurred just then,─ in short, that Śivagupta, having been at first only a feudatory prince of Kôsala like Tîvaradêva, subsequently became powerful enough to seize the paramount sovereighty of that country, and perhaps also of te Kaliṅga territories. But, though I fully agree with Professor Kielhorn (Ind. Ant. Vol. XVIII. p. 179) that the Râjim grant is at any rate not older than A.D. 700, and that the Sirpur inscriptions may be placed in the eighth or ninth century, still, the palæographic evidence seems to render impossible the identification that was made by Sir Alexander Cunningham. Lithographs have been published of the edited inscription of Śivagupta, the son of Harshagupta, and of other records which mention him and his father (Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. XVII. Plates xviii. A. and B., and xix. C.). The original records evidently have the p, m, y, sh, and s with only the hal mâtrâ, throughout. The k is of the pointed type. And another feature stamps them as belonging to even an earlier period than that which may be established by these two characteristics ; the m has, not only the half mâtrâ, but also the straight arm to the left, instead of the loop which appears in the present charters and in all the records which have been quoted above, from the Dêôgaḍh inscription of A.D. 862 onwards,¹ and which is carried
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...... ¹ In the Gwâlior inscription of A.D. 875-76, indeed, the exact form of this feature is rather that of a solid button than of a loop with a hollow centre ; but the type is the same.─ In the lithographs of the Sirpur inscriptions, the m appears with the loop twice, in A. line 1 and B. line 12 ; but it seems tolerably certain that these instances are only mistakes made in preparing the hand-drawings from which the lithographs were made.