South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

Archaeological Department carried on further excavations in 1938 and found 3 or 4 more Mss. in the same stūpa. One of these is a fragment of the Mahāmāyūrī^[1] which mentions the name of Shāhānushāhi Paṭōlashāhi śrī-Nava-Surēndrādityanandidēva. The Ms. was written for ensuring a long life for the king. This king is obviously identical with the ruler mentioned in the inscription under consideration. The Ms. further gives us the name of his queen as Anaṅgadēvī. Names of two other rulers of this dynasty are also found in the colophons of the Gilgit Mss. discovered earlier in 1931. Dutt notices one of them whose name with full titles appears in the colophon as Śrīdēva Shāhi Surēndra Vikramāditya Nanda^[2] who is mentioned there as a devout lay worshipper. He along with Śamidēvī-Trailōkadēvī-bhaṭṭārikā, probably his wife, and one Vihali were the chief donors of the Ms. Dutt connects this colophon with Ms. B of the Bhaishajyaguru edited by him. I examined the colophon of this Ms. carefully and found that it was the gift of the devout lay worshipper Vasaṁta and his associates while the page, where the name of the ruler appears, formed the obverse of an unnumbered folio and might have belonged to a different Ms. I came across the name of another ruler of the same dynasty in another colophon also found on an unnumbered leaf, who is styled there as Paṭōladēva Shāhi Vajrādityanandi and is therefore different from the Paṭōladēva of our inscription. No further information is available from the colophon and it cannot be said definitely whether he was a predecessor or a successor of Surēndra Vikramāditya. One thing is, however, certain. Palaeographically both the Mss. are earlier than the Mahāmāyūrī Ms. and the Hātūn inscription and therefore the ruler of the last mentioned document must be styled Paṭōladēva II. Unfortunately nothing is known of these rulers from any other source. There is no indication as to whether the year 47 mentioned in the Hātūn inscription has to be referred to any particular era or represents only the regnal year. The main objection against its being the regnal year is that Paṭōladēva has to be allotted a rule of at least half a century and that he was of quite an advanced age when this inscription was engraved. This by itself is not impossible but seems unlikely when we consider that the Saptarshi or Laukika era was prevalent in these parts, in which the centuries were invariably omitted and the year 47 may therefore very well denote a date in the Laukika era. Unfortunately the details of the date given in the record do not admit of verification and we have to leave the point undecided, though the dating in the Laukika era would seem to be more reasonable.

Now, who were these Shāhi rulers ? Dutt seems to think they belonged to the Shāhiyaa dynasty of Udabhāṇḍapura (Ohind). But it can not be so. Lalliya Shāhi, the founder of the Hindu Shāhiya dynasty was a contemporary of king Śaṅkaravarman of Kashmir (883-902 A.D.) But the dynasty of the Ādityas of Gilgit─we may call them so as all the rulers bore the title of Āditya─was definitely earlier in date. Moreover, the region where this inscription and the Mss. have been found is outside the territory of the Shahis of Ohind and is in the Darada country. According to Stein, the kingdom of the Daradas extended from Chitral and Yasin, ‘across the Indus region of Gilgit, Chilas and Bunji to the Kishanganga valley in the immediate north of Kashmir ’. In the last two books (Taraṅgas vii and viii) of his work, Kalhaṇa gives the names of several Darada chiefs such as Achalamaṅgala, Jagaddala, Maṇidhara, Yaśōdhara and Viḍḍasīha. None of them, however, is given the title of Shāhi except Vidyādhara Shāhi, a contemporary of Harsha of Kashmir (1089-1101 A.D.). This single instance is enough to show that Kalhaṇa knew of their Shāhi origin. The Daradas are known from very ancient times. They are mentioned in the first book of the Rājataraṅgiṇī and were known to Herodotus as occupying almost the same region as indicated above. They are mentioned in the Bṛihatsaṁhatā and were known also the Ptolemy, Strabo and Pliny. Dutt’s statement that ‘about the 10th or 11th century, some Shāhi princes managed to create small

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^[1] Shastri, Quarterly Journa lof the Mythic Society, Vol. XXX, No. 1 (July 1939), pp. 11-12 and Pl. 1443. See also M. S. Kaul, Gilgit Excavation Report, 1938.
^[2] Nalinaksha Dutt, Gilgit Manuscripts, Vol. I, Introduction, p. 40, and Text of the Bhaishajyagurusūtra, p. 32.