South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

of the Western Gaṅgas, and it is found above their records at Biḷiûr, Peggu-ûr, Kyâtanahaḷḷi, and Tâyalûr.^[1]

It is probable that Vijaya-Narasiṁhavarman represented the main line of the Gaṅgas ; and he was very likely a lineal descendant of Satyâśraya-Dhruvarâja-Indravarman.

And it is becoming tolerably certain that Śivamâra I. and his descendants did not belong to the main line, but were the hereditary princes of the Koṅgaḷnâḍ eight-thousand province. This would explain why Śivamâra I. and Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa called themselves “ the Koṅguṇi king,” and why their descendants assumed the appellation Koṅgaṇivarman, Koṅguṇivarman, Koṅgiṇivarman, or Koṅguḷivarman, from which there was evolved, by the persons who fabricated the spurious grants, the name of the fictitious “ Koṅgaṇivarman, the first Gaṅga,”^[2] as the imaginary founder of the line.

As regards the spurious grants,─ only ten, including the Sûḍi grant, were known when I wrote about them in Vol. III. of this Journal, p. 159 ff.; I dealt there with only some of the features in respect of which they have to be criticised ; I could not examine any of the details, except the date, of the Hosûr grant, purporting to be dated A.D. 762, because I was not aware that the text of it, with a lithograph, had been published in Mr. Rice’s article on “ the Gaṅga kings ” in the Madras Journ. Lit. and Science, 1878, p. 138 ff. ; and, similarly for want of a lithograph or impressions, I was not able to examine any of the details of the Bangalore Museum grant, which purports to have been issued in the third year of Durvinîta. Since then, some more spurious copper-plate grants of the same series have been published.^[3] And there are others already known, the publication of which is awaited. In the final examination of them, one interesting line of inquiry will be to collate the texts, examine all the peculiarities of vocabulary and diction, discover the locality in which these curious documents, or at least the majority of them, were fabricated, and trace the order in which they were concocted, and so, perhaps, the steps by which the fictitious pedigree was built up. In connection with all this, it will be desirable to see what real equivalents can be found for the false dates recorded in some of them, and in certain other records of the same nature connected with them : on this point, my present view is that, while some of the false dates are no doubt altogether imaginary, others of them may have been arrived at by calculations more or less correct, and others, again, give the true details of the dates on which the records were fabricated, or of dates, close to those dates, taken from almanacs accessible to be the forgers, falsified in respect of the years by striking off an even number of cycles of the sixty-year system, or by similar means, in order to present a semblance of antiquity ; and it is an

that branch had the crest of a tiger and a deer ; and one of the branches at Bâgalkôṭ had the tiger-crest. The Sindas claimed to belong to the Nâga race. And a statement referable to the eleventh century A.D., and to be accepted for what it may be worth, would allot the Sêndrakas themselves─ (whom it mentions as Sêndras)─ to the lineage of the Bhujagêndras or serpent kings (id. p. 292).

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^[1] See the lithographs in Ind. Ant. Vol. p. 101, Coorg Inscrs. p. 7, and Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Sr. 147 and Md. 14.─ In pointing out (above, Vol. V. p. 165, note 4) an objection to treating the Tâyalûr records (Md. 14) as “ an intrusive Pallava inscription,” I omitted to notice the fact that the emblem of the elephant proves conclusively that it is not such.
^[2] This exact expression occurs in an inscription at Kûḍḷâpura, Ep. Carn. Vol. Nj. 110, which purports to be of A.D. 1148. It is extremely doubtful whether it is even a genuine record of that period. But, if we assume that it is genuine as far as it goes, then, of course, in putting forward Śaka-Saṁvat 25 expired, = A.D. 103-104, as the date of “ Koṅgaṇivarman, the first Gaṅga,” it simply puts forward, in good faith, a false statement successfully palmed off on the officials of the period with a view to setting up a previous grant of the village. Historically, as regards the Gaṅgas, the record is worthless ; except in perhaps shewing that, by A.D. 1148, the date of A.D. 103-104 had come to be connected with the imaginary Koṅgaṇivarman.
^[3]Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Md. 113, the Haḷḷegere grant, purporting to be dated A.D. 713, and Nj. 122, the Tagaḍûru grant, purporting to the dated A.D. 267, and Vol. IV., Yd. 60, the Gaḷigêkere grant, Sr. 160, the Gañjâm grant, and probably (see page 66 above, note 1) Hg. 4, the Saragûru grant ; all of them with lithographs.