|
The Indian Analyst
|
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA verifiable date but also a complete genealogy of Imperial Rāshṭrakūṭas from Gōvinda I to Nityavarsha Indra III, throws further light on the point of controversy and clearly supports the views of Panchamukhi and Ayyar. But the recent suggestion of Prof. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, based on an inadequate appreciation of the evidence discussed by the said scholars, that Indra III ended his rule in the year 927 A.D.[1] is apparently wrong. The Bhādāna grant[2] of Śilāhāra Aparājita clearly states that Amōghavarsha II, elder brother of Gōvinda IV, ruled for one year, while, as already shown above, the coronation of Gōvinda IV took place on the 10th May 930 A.D. and he must have ascended the throne shortly before that date. Besides the Dandapur inscription, probably issued during his governorship over the region in question under his father, the earliest inscriptions of the reign of Gōvinda IV are the Gaonri plates and the Kalas inscription dated respectively the 17th and 30th January of 930 A.D.[3] He, therefore, does not appear to have ascended the throne much earlier than the beginning of the year 930 A.D. Thus the one year’s reign of Amōghavarsha II may be regarded as roughly corresponding to the year 929 A.D. Indra III, therefore, seems to have ruled till the end of 928 A.D.
The governorship of a Tājika or Arab over Saṁyāna under the Rāshṭrakūṭa kings Kṛishṇa II and Indra III, known for the first time from the inscription under study, supports the statements of certain early Arab writers. The Balharās (Ballaha-rāyas or Vallabha-rājas, i.e. the Rāshṭrakūṭa monarchs) of Mānkīr (i.e. Mānyakhēṭa or Mālkheḍ) find mention in the writings of Sulaimān (851 A.D.), Abū Zaid (before 916 A.D.), Ibn Khurdādba (before 912 A.D.), Al Ma‘sūdī (932-33 A.D.) Al Istakhrī (about 951 A.D.) and Ibn Haukal (between 943 and 968 A.D.).[4] These authors give the general impression that the Balharās and their subject were extremely partial to the Arab Musalmans and, according to Ibn Haukal and Al Istakhrī, Musalman governors of cities were employed by the Balharās. It is also stated by them that none but Muslims ruled over their co-religionists living in that empire, apparently meaning thereby that the Rāshṭrakūṭas appointed Qāzīs to look after the religious and judicial affairs of their Muslim subjects who were mostly of Arab nationality. Since, however, Muslim administrators did not so long figure in the epigraphical records of the Rāshṭrakūṭas, Prof. A. S. Altekar considered the statements of the Arab writers as unreliable.[5] But the present inscription proves the veracity of the statements of Ibn Haukal and Al Istakhrī. Since Madhumati Sugatipa was appointed governor of Saṁyāna sometime before the end of the rule of Kṛishṇa II in 915 A.D., he was continuing to hold the important post for more than a decade. He must have been a successful administrator capable to preserve friendly relations with the peoples of communities and creeds other than his own. The way he associated himself with the construction of a Hindu monastery or temple, the installation of an image therein and the creation of a permanent endowment in its favour throws welcome light on the outlook of the Arab Musalmans of those days. This is in striking contrast with the policy of most of the later Muslim rulers of India The Arab governor’s rule over the district around Saṁyāna during the reigns of the Rāshṭrakūṭa kings Kṛishṇa II (878-915 A.D.) and Indra III (915-28 A.D.) throws interesting light on the history of the Śilāhāras of the Northern Konkan. We know that, during the reign of Amōghavarsha I (814-80 A.D.), the Śilāhāras claimed to be rulers of the whole of the Konkan as feudatories of the Rāshṭrakūṭa monarch and that they again became powerful in the ________________________________________________
[1] History of South India. 1955, p. 169.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
