|
The Indian Analyst
|
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA Next we come to the word Sarāṁgha. This is also of non-Sanskritic origin and is obviously connected with the Middle and New Persian Sar-hang meaning ‘ head of the army of gathering ’. Its origin has to sought in the Iranian sar, ‘ head ’ (Indo-Aryan śiras) and the old Persian hanga (Skt. saṁgha), ‘ company ’. Even now the Indianised form of the word can be traced in the term Sareng, ‘ head of the crew of a steamer ’.[1] The term Kāñchudī, as was pointed out to me by Sir Aurel, must be connected with the racial designation of Kanjūti applied to the people of Hunza and known as Kanjūt to its neighbours. According to the inscription, king Paṭōladēva was born in the lineage of Bhagadatta who is no other than the homonymous son of Naraka mentioned in the Mahābhārata. It is interesting to note that the same lineage is claimed also by Bhāskaravarman, the ruler of Prāgjyōtisha (Assam) and the contemporary of Harsha of the Pushabhūti family, ruler of Kanauj and Thanesvar (7th century A.D.). How the rulers of two widely separated territories, one in the mountainous region of the north and the other in the extreme east, came to trace their descent from the same ancestor, it is difficult to explain. It may be that both had the same object in view, namely, to establish their origin to a reputed Kshatriya family stated to be descanted from the god Vishṇu himself. Of course the name of Prāgjyōtisha was well known in Kāshmīr in ancient times. Kalhaṇa refers to it on three occasions, once in connection with a story in the Mahābhārāta[2] and twice with the kings of Kāshmīr. In Book II (vv. 146 ff.) it is stated that Mēghavāhana, who became the king of Kāshmir on the restoration of the Gōnandda dynasty, won the hands of Amṛitaprabhā, daughter of the king of Prāgjyōtisha, in a svayaṁvara ceremony. There is also a reference to the Assian king’s descent from Vishṇu and the parasol of Varuṇa which was carried there by Naraka. Kalhaṇa also mentions this country in connection with the digvijaya of Muktāpīḍa Lalitāditya (8th century).[3] But what is strange is that immediately after the territories of the Bhuṭṭas and Daradas, he mentions Prāgjyōtisha to be followed by only mythical regions in the north. In the first instance also, while Amṛitaparbhā is mentioned as a princess of Prāgjyōtisha, her father had a guru who was obviously a Tibetan.[4] Can these instances indicate that there existed a tradition in Kāshmīr of a second Prāgjyōtisha in the north of Kāshmīr in the neighbourhood of the Darada country ? Or, was it that the kings of Prāgjyōtisha in Eastern India were in some way connected with the region in the north of Kāshmīr ? If we can trace such a tradition that would offer an easy explanation for connecting the family of Patōladēva with Bhagadatta. The kingdom of the Assam rulers might have extended to a part of the hills but not certainly so far to the west.
Another point is that the Gilgit area is immediately across the Hindukush adjoined by Iranian territory and Stein has pointed out that in Wakhan the epic tradition of Iran was fully alive among the people. He also informed me that, even in the south, the Ishkuman valley is partly occupied by modern immigrants from Wakhan, speaking an Eastern Iranian tongue, and its present ruling family came from there. Thus it is not unlikely that, in an earlier period, the Indianised descendants of the Iranian Kushāṇas a derivation of their traditional family claim from a legendary hero of the Mahābhārata might well have appealed. But in the absence of historical records nothing can be established. The Chinese sources do not help us much as Chinese authority over these parts ended much earlier and after the Islamisation of the territory all such traditions seem to have been altogether lost. Following the discovery in 1931 of the now wellknown Buddhist Mss. In a stūpa in the mountainous region 3 miles to the north of Gilgit,[5] Pandit Madhusudan Kaul of the Kāshmir __________________________________________________
[1] See Yule, Hobson Jobson, s.v. Serang.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|
