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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA built a temple at the great tīrtha of Banaras without himself visiting the place. Since Bhīmadēva’s presence at Banaras is not easily explainable in the present state of insufficient information, this is probably a better solution of the problem. The absence of any mention of the king of Gauḍa in the inscription may go in support of this alternative. The want of a date in the Vikrama Saṁvat may suggest that the record was drafted in the home province of Bhīmadēva and that of one in the regnal reckoning of Bhīmadēva’s master may have been due to the fact that the document was meant for an area which was outside his dominions although the latter system of dating was popular in Eastern India in the early medieval period. The fourth and fifth problems are also difficult to solve. In the first half of the twelfth century A.D. the mighty Gaṅga king Anantavarman Chōḍagaṅga (1078-1147 A. D.) extended his dominions up to the river Hooghly and he is also stated to have been a friend of the Sēna king Vijayasēna who sometime afterwards overthrew Pāla rule from the western and northern parts of Bengal.[1] Thus he may have come into hostile contact with the Pālas. But it has to be admitted that there is no reference to war between Chōḍagaṅga and his Pāla contemporary in the records of the Gaṅgas. The allusion to the invasion of the Gauḍa-Varēndra country by the king of Kaliṅga no doubt reminds us of the claim of Gaṅga Narasiṁha I (c. 1238-65 A.D.) to have defeated the Yavanas (Musalmans) of Rāḍhā and Varēndrī and the account, in Minhāj-uddīn’s Tabaqāt-i-Nāsirī, of the invasion of Lakhanavatī (the capital of the Muslim kingdom in Bengal comprising Rāl, i.e. Rāḍha, and Barind, i.e. Varēndra or Varēndrī), situated near modern Gaur in the Malda District, by the forces of the Rāī of Jājnagar (i.e. Gaṅga Narasiṁha I) on the 13th of the month of Shawāl in the Hijrī year 642, corresponding to the 14th March 1245 A.D. under Sāmantarāya, the general and son-in-law of the Gaṅga monarch.[2] But it is difficult to think that Bhīmadēva was a servant of Malik Tughril Tughān Khān (1236-45 A.D.) of Bengal as in that case it will have to be believed that his grandfather was appointed as minister for war and peace by the Muslims almost immediately after the establishment of the Muslim kingdom in Bengal. The reference to the council of the hereditary ministers of the Gauḍa king of which Bhīmadēva’s grandfather was a member seems to suggest a long-standing kingdom and possibly not a newly founded one.
The identification of the king of the Rayāri dynasty is equally uncertain. The only person named Rāyāri known to the student of East Indian history is of course king Rāyāridēva Trailōkyasiṁha who was the grandfather of Vallabhadēva Śrīvallabha of an inscription of Śaka 1107 (1185 A.D.).[3] Whether the expression Rāyāri-vaṁ śa-naranātha indicates Rāyāridēva’s son Udayakarṇa Niḥśaṅkasiṁha cannot be determined, although the inscription referred to above describes Rāyāridēva, son of Bhāskaradēva, as Bhāskara-vaṁśa-rāja-tilaka. The inscription, however, does not refer to any struggle of Udayakarṇa Niḥśaṅkasiṁha with the king of Gauḍa, though his father Rāyāridēva Trailōkyasiṁha is stated to have come into conflict with forces of the Vaṅga country. This dynasty probably ruled over the Sylhet region between Bengal and Assam. The geographical names mentioned in the inscription are Gauḍa or Gauḍa-Varēndra and Avimukta-nadī. Varēndra or Varēndrī (Barind of the Muslim writers) was the name of North Bengal. The earliest reference to Varēndra or Varēndrī-maṇḍala is found in Sandhyākaranandin’s Rāmacharita[4] composed about the end of the eleventh century. But Gauḍa is an ancient ___________________________________________________
[1] JBRS. Vol. XI., Part 2, 1954, p. 94.
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