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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
Of Sivamâra I. we have not, as yet, any genuine record affording a clue to a specific date
for him. But historical considerations require us to place him about A.D. 760. And the
palæographic indications of certain genuine records which are fairly attributable to him, are
fully in accordance with that view. I have proposed for him the period about A.D. 755 to 765. I may hereafter place him a very few years earlier or later. But, for the present, the period
that I have proposed is a sufficiently close approximation to the truth.
Of Srîpurusha-Muttarasa, again, we have not, as yet, any genuine record affording a
clue to a specific date for him. On palæographic and historical grounds, I have allotted to
him the period about A.D. 765 to 805. It may be necessary hereafter to place him ten years
or so earlier, or even later ; and also to allow him a somewhat longer period, because there
seems to be a record at Mêlâgâni or at Bissênahaḷḷi,[1] overlooked by me, which quotes his forty-second year. But here again, for the present, the proposed period is close enough to the truth.
Next after Srîpurusha-Muttarasa, I have placed Śivamâra II., with the period about A.D.
805 to 810. How far this entry can be upheld, must be a matter for future consideration, for
the following reasons. In the first place, we have no genuine records fairly referable to him as
a ruling prince. In the second place, we have no absolute statement anywhere, save in the
spurious grants, that Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa had a son named Śivamâra. In the third place, in
selecting A.D. 805 as his initial date, I allowed myself to be guided by the Suradhênupura
forgery,─ (not having any reason to suspect that it was so very modern and feeble a fraud),─
on the chance that that document, though spurious, preserved a genuine date which, not only
was not an impossible one,[2] but was a very possible one, and one that would fit in exactly with
the fact that the paramount sovereign, the Râshṭrakûṭa king Gôvinda III., was actually in the
Kanarese country, on the Tuṅgabhadrâ, and apparently in Mysore itself, in A.D. 804,[3] which
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[1] See Coorg Inscr. Introd. p. 4.
[2] It became “ impossible ” only on the discovery of the spurious Maṇṇe grant, purporting to be dated A.D. 797,
which would establish in connection with Śivamâra II. a date, when he either was ruling or else had ruled and passed
away, eight years before the commencement of his rule according to the Suradhênupura forgery.
[3] See the record of that year, mentioned in my Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts (in the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I. Part II.), p. 379. Mr. Rice (Mysore, revised edition, Vol. I. p. 325) has identified the
Râmêśvara tîrtha,─ where, the record says, Gôvinda III. was then encamped,─ with an island in the Tuṅgabhadrâ,
five miles south of Honnâḷi in the Shimoga district, Mysore.─ I take this opportunity of referring to passages in my Dyn. Kan. Distrs. pp. 396, 403, where I have suggested that a certain place,─ in respect of which the “ lord of
Veṅgi,” i.e. the Eastern Chalukya king Vijayâditya II., is said to have assisted Gôvinda III. in fortifying it, by
constructing an outer wall round it,─ was Mânyakhêṭa, the modern Mâlkhêḍ in the Nizâm’s Dominions, and
that, subsequently, Amôghavarsha I. completed the fortification of the city and made it the capital of his dynasty.
The place is referred to in verse 19 of the Râdhanpur grant of A.D. 807 (Ind. Ant. Vol. VI. p. 71). The
preceding verse tells us that Gôvinda III. had, in the course of previous events, marched with his army to the banks
of the Tuṅgabhadrâ, and there “ had drawn to himself the wealth of the Pallavas,” or, in other word, had levied
tribute or fines from them ; and, with the help of the record from the Kanarese country (Ind. Ant. Vol. XI. p. 125),
we may place that about the beginning of A.D. 804. And the use of the word yatra, “ where,” in verse 19, locates
the place, round which the vâhy-âlî-vṛiti or “ external circumvallation ” was built for him by “ the lord of Veṅgi,”
on, or somewhere in the neighbourhood of, the Tuṅgabhadrâ. The reference may be only to a fortification of some
large encampment actually on the Tuṅgabhadrâ ; and, in that case, we may locate that encampment, because of
the mention of the Pallavas and the lord of Veṅgî, as far to the east as possible,─ somewhere in the neighbourhood
of the confluence of the Tuṅgabhadrâ and the Kṛishṇâ. But Mâlkhêḍ is only some eighty-five or ninety
miles away, on the north, from the Tuṅgabhadrâ. It probably already existed, as a place of some importance. The
usefulness of it, if fortified, with a view to resisting attacks from the east, would be evident. And it is very likely
that Gôvinda III. then decided on making it the capital, and caused the external fortifications of it to be built for him
by the king of Veṅgî. In that case, the passage in verse 12 of the Dêôlî grant of A.D. 940 (above, Vol. V. p. 193,
text lines 18, 19),─ which Dr. Bhandarkar has interpreted as shewing that Mâlkhêḍ was founded by Amôghavarsha I.,
─ may be translated so as to mean that Amôghavarsha I. merely further embellished a city which had been selected
as the capital, and had been fortified, by Gôvinda III. ; just as, among the Western Chalukyas, Pulakêśin I.
acquired Bâdâmi (page 8 above, verse 7), but his son and successor Kîrtivarman I., in whose time, we know, the large
Vaishṇava cave at least was made there, is called “ the first maker or creator ” of it, i.e. the person who began to
adorn the city with temples and other buildings (above, Vol. III. p. 52, and see Dyn. Kan. Distrs. p. 345).
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