South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

Buddhist trinity, viz., Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha, worshipped there.^[1] There are instances of kings granting land in favour of the ratna-traya. Thus the expression ratnatraya-bahiḥ of Ḍōmmaṇapāla’s inscription means to say that the village in question was granted with the exclusion of the area around the Buddhist establishment in it or better the area in the possession of a Buddhist establishment. Similarly, ratnatraya-rājasambhōga-varjita of the Manahali plate means “ excluding lands enjoyed by the Buddhist establishment and those belonging to the king’s Khās Mahāl ”

7. Saugor Inscription of Śaṅkaragaṇa

Prof. V. V. Mirashi has recently published the Saugor inscription of Śaṅkaragaṇa in this journal, Vol. XXVII, pp. 163 ff. According to his reading, Paramabhaṭṭāraka Mahārājādhirāja Paramēśvara Śaṅkaragaṇa, during whose reign the inscription was incised, has been described in the record as paramabhaṭṭāraka-mahārājādhirāja-paramēśvara-śrī-Vāmarājadēva-pād-ānudhyāta, although what has been read as Vāmarāja appears to me from the published facsimile to be only Vāvarāja.^[2] The inscription has been assigned on palaeographic grounds to the middle of the eighth century. In view of this date of the record, kings Vāmarāja and Śaṅkaragaṇa, who would appear to have belonged to the Kalachuri family, have been regarded, without any reason whatever, as ancestors of the Kalachuri emperors of Tripurī. Similarly, without any convincing argument, Vāmarāja has been placed a few generations earlier than Śaṅkaragaṇa, roughly about the second half of the seventh century. It is well known that the Kalachuris of Tripurī, from the time of Karṇa (1041-71 A.C.), described themselves in their official charters as paramabhaṭṭāraka-mahārājādhirāja-paramēśvara-paramamāhēśvara-śrī-Vāmadēva-pād-ānudhyāta.^[3] Professor Mirashi now thinks that Vāmadēva mentioned in the records of the Kalachuris of Tripurī is no other than the king of the Saugor inscription of the eighth century, whose name is Vāmarāja according to his reading.

Professor Mirashi refers to the Malkāpuram inscription of Śaka 1183 (1261-62 A.C.) which speaks of the Śaiva pontiff Vāmaśambhu as the third (not second as maintained by the Professor) in spiritual descent from Sadbhāvaśambhu who founded the Gōḷakī maṭha in the Ḍāhala or Chēdi country with the help received from the Kalachuri king Yuvarāja (either Yuvarāja I who reigned about the middle of the tenth century or his grandson Yuvarāja II who flourished about the end of the same century as he is known to have been defeated by Paramāra Muñja, (974-96 A.C.) and incidentally says that ‘ even now ’ the Kalachuri kings are honoured for worshipping Vāmaśambhu’s feet. He further refers to my paper in the Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. XV, 1938, pp. 96 ff., and says, “ Dr. D. C. Sircar had recently suggested that this Vāmaśambhu was the spiritual preceptor of the Kalachuri king Karṇa and flourished in the middle of the eleventh century A.D. The description in the Malkāpuram inscription that even then (i.e., in the middle of the thirteenth century

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^[1] Cf. N. G. Majumdar, A Guide to the Sculptures in the Indian Museum, Part II, pp. 74-75.
^[2] Hiralal read the name as Vāgharāja. But the disputed akshara is not gha, and apparently also not ma as suggested by Professor Mirashi who thinks that the loop of ma, not to be found on the facsimile, is still visible on the stone. It will be seen from the facsimile of the inscription that the upper and lower left strokes of ma join its loop in an acute angle, whereas the back of the letter in question is fully rounded exactly as in the preceding vā. Indeed much has been made on the slender basis of the reading of the letter as ma, which appears to be merely conjectural. For other references to the word Vāva or Bāva in inscriptions, see paramabhaṭṭāraka-śrī-Bāva-pād-ānudhyāta in the Lohata plate (IHQ, Vol. XXV, p. 288) and paramabhaṭṭāraka-mahārajādhirāja-paramēśvara-śrī-Bāva-pād-ānudhyāta in the Maitraka records (Corp. Ins. Ind., Vol. III, p. 186, note). The use of the word has to be compared with that of Bappa in epigraphic passages like mahārāja-Bappa-svamin (Sel. Ins., p. 438], paramabhaṭṭāraka-mahārājādhirāja-Paramēśvara-śrī-Bappa-pād-ānudhyāta and Bappa-bhaṭṭāraka-māhārāja-śrī-pād-ānudhyāta (Corp. Ins. Ind., loc. cit.). Mr. N. Lakshminarayaṇ Rao who has also carefully examined the letter agrees with me that the reading of the name is not Vāmarāja. He think that it may be Vāparāja or V [ō]parāja.
^[3] See above, Vol. II, pp. 5, 309, etc.