South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

be a mistake for Kaustubhēśvaryā. The queen-mother’s name may thus have been Kaustubhēśvarī. But the king’s name is more indifferently written and looks like Sōbhōṅnā- or Sōbhīṅnā rāja which, however, may not be its correct from.

The goddess Stambhēśvarī is known to have been the family deity of the Śulkīs who ruled over the Dhenkanal area of Orissa about the tenth century A.D.^[1] If the Śulkīs have to be identified with the Śūlikas mentioned in the Haraha inscription,^[2] they were probably ruling in Orissa as early as the sixth century A. D. But we do not know if any relation existed between the Śulkīs and Tushṭikāra’s family. The aboriginal people of Orissa worship wooden pillars posted at the corner of their villages. This aboriginal deity was gradually adopted by the orthodox Hindus who gave her the name Stambhēśvarī (now usually called Khambēśvarī). There are a few temples of this goddess in different parts of Orissa.^[3]

Tushṭikāra and Sōbhōṅnā of Sōbhīṅnā are not known from any other source. Their territory apparently comprised the district round the cities of Tarabhramaraka and Parvvatadvāraka in the present Kalahandi region of Orissa. The fact that the gift land has been mentioned in the document without any specification regarding its location in a district may suggest that Tushṭikāra ruled over a small area.

It is difficult to determine what relations the royal family represented by Tushṭikāra and Sōbhōṅnā or Sōbhīṅnā had with the Pāṇḍuvaṁśī king of South Kosala. We cannot possibly think that Tushṭikāra’s family owed allegiance to the Pāṇduvaṁśīs but began to rule semi-independently on the latter’s decline. There is no influence of Pāṇḍuvaṁśī charters on the style of Tushṭikāra’s grant. Moreover the decline of the Pāṇḍuvaṁśīs appears to have been brought about by the expedition against South Kosala led by the early Chālukya king Pulakēśīn II (circa 610-42 A.D.) of Badami, some time before 634 A.D., probably during the reign of Śivagupta (or Mahāśivagupta) Bālārjuna who ruled at least for about 57 years and was the last important ruler of the Pāṇḍuvaṁśa. The palaeography of the inscription under discussion, as already indicated above, seems to be much earlier than the middle of the seventh century.

The inscription mentions the following geographical names : (1) Tarabhramaraka, (2) Prastara-vāṭaka, and (3) Parvvatadvāraka. Of these Tarabhramaraka seems to be no other than the present village of Tala-Bhamara, about two miles to the south of Belkhandi-Rajapadar, on the bank of the Utei, a tributary of the Tel.^[4] Parvvatadvāraka, which seems to have been situated on a pass between two hills, cannot be identified. The identification of the locality called Prastaravātaka is also uncertain.

TEXT^[5]

First Plate, First Side

1 Svi(sva)sti [|*]^[6] Parvvatadvārakād=bha[ga]^[7]vatyā Stasbhēniryyā^[8] pāda-bha[kta]-

_______________________________________________

^[1] Cf. above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 111-12.
^[2] Above, Vol. XIV, pp. 115 ff. ; Bhandarkar’s List, No. 10.
^[3] There is a Stambhēśvarī temple at Aska in the Ganjam District (JKHRS, Vol. II, p. 110). In the centre of the town of Sonpur, there is a pillar known as Stambhēśvarī and a temple is also attributed to her (Mazumdar, Orissa in the Making, p. 107). Mazumdar gives an interesting account of the worship of this deity in modern Orissa. For the goddess Stambhēśvarī, see also JPASB, Vol. VII, pp- 443 ff.
^[4] JKHRS, Vol. II, p. 109.
^[5] From the original plates.
^[6] The akshara pa had been originally engraved near rvva but was later erased and incised near sti.
^[7]The letter ga has a curious from.
^[8] Read Stambhēśvaryāh. Note that, in this endorsement, t has sometimes a looped form differing little from that of n.