North Indian Inscriptions

RECORDS OF THE SOMAVAMSI KINGS OF KATAK.

reign is made to cover the period B.C. 1037 to 822 ; but the annals say that he founded the city of Râjanahêndri, i.e. Râjamandri or Râjamahêndrapuram in the Gôdâvari district, Madras Presidency ; and, though there may have been a city on the spot in earlier times, still (see Ind. Ant. Vol. XX. pp. 94, 266) there can be but little doubt, if any, that the name Râjamahêndrapura was given to it by, or on account of, the Eastern Chalukya king Amma I., who had the biruda of Râja-Mahêndra, and whose period was A.D. 918 to 925 : consequently, at the best, with the name of Mahêndradêva there is coupled the reminiscence of an event which took place some eighteen hundred years later. After Bhôjadêva there reigned, according to Mr. Stirling’s version, Vikramâditya alone, and according to the other version Vikramâditya and his brother Śakâditya, for 135 years, from B.C. 57 to A.D. 78. The object of this statement is simply to fill the interval from the commencement of the Vikrama era (really in B.C. 58) to the commencement of the Śaka era (really in A.D. 77). We know now (see Ind. Ant. Vol. XX. pp. 405, 409) that it was not till about the ninth century A.D. that the word vikrama began to be connected with the Vikrama era ; that most probably the appellation ‘Vikrama year or time’ simply denotes the poets’ ‘war-time,’ the autumn, and was transferred from the autumn to the whole year itself ; that era did not derive its present name from any real king Vikrama or Vikramâditya, synchronous with the initial point of it ; and consequently, that this statement of the annals, though correct from the traditional point of view, is intrinsically as purely fictitious as the matter that precedes it. The period from A.D. 78 to 328 is filled by the reigns of karmajit (65 years), ‘Hatkêśvara’ (51 years), Vîrabhuvana (43 years), Nirmaladêva (45 years), Bhîma (37 years), Śobhanadêva (4 tears), and Chandradêva (5 years).¹ Then, we are told, the Yavanas, who had invaded Orissa in the time of Śôbhanadêva and had put Chandradêva to death, held the country for 146 years,─ from A.D. 328 to 474.

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Then, the annals say, Yayâti-Kêsari expelled the Yavanas, and founded the Kêsari dynasty ; he reigned for 52 years, and was succeeded by forty-three members of his dynasty, whose reigns varied from 2 to 54 years ; and thus is filled the period from A.D. 474 to 1132. And then, it is said, a king from the south, named Chôḍagaṅga, obtained the throne of Orissa and established the Gaṅgavaṁśa dynasty,─ he himself reigning for 20 years, from A.D. 1132 to 1152. Except in the cases of Yayâti-Kêsari and Janamêjaya-Kêsari, from Karmajit (A.D. 78 to 143) to Suvarṇa-Kêsari, the last of the Kêsari dynasty (A.D. 1123 to 1132), the names are so utterly unknown that they do not present material for individual criticism of the same kind : in respect of most of them, it can only be said that the termination âditya and varman, or any of the other endings which were so much affected in early times, do not occur anywhere among them, and that not one of them has any ring of antiquity in the sound of it : they may possibly be real names of later rulers, misplaced in order to make out a consecutive chronological series ; this, however, is the utmost that can be said for them. But I would draw special attention to the names of Narasiṁha-Kêsari, Kûrma-Kêsari, Matsya-Kêsari, Varâhâ-Kêsari, Vâmana-Kêsari, and Paraśu-Kêsari, which are placed one after the other in the period A.D. 1013 to 1080 : in respect of these, nothing could be plainer than the evident fact that the inventive faculty and other resources of the persons who concocted the annals failed them, and that they here drew on the incarnations of vishṇu as the man-lion, the tortoise, the fish, the boar, and the dwarf, and as Paraśurâma, the destroyer of the Kshatriyas. Other clear indications of a recourse to mythology present themselves in the names of Padma-Kêsari (A.D. 701 to 706), Gandharva-Kêsari (A.D. 740 to 754), Kali-Kêsari (A.D. 778 to 792), Madhusûdana-Kêsari (A.D. 904 to 920), and Tripura- Kêsari (A.D. 961 to 971). And the name of Alabu-Kêsari (A.D. 623 to 677) distinctly suggests a Musalmân with some such appellation as ‘Alap Khân.’ But the cases of Yayâti-Kêsari and Janamêjaya-Kêsari are, even alone, amply sufficient to upset the whole list.
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......¹ Called ‘Indra Deo’ by Mr. Stirling.