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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
purport to be of the time of Satyâśraya-(Pulakêśin II.) and the Sêndra prince Durgaśakti
(not dated), and of Vikramâditya II. (dated A.D. 735). And another stone tablet at the
same place[1] contains a record of Vijayâditya (dated A.D. 723), followed by other records
of the same king (dated A.D. 730), of Gaṅgakandarpa-(Noḷambântaka-Mârasiṁha II.) (dated,
again, A.D. 968-69), and of Vinayâditya (dated A.D. 687). These records, though bearing
such very different dates, are all in characters of one and the same period, and were all put
on the stones at one and the same time. When I dealt with them,─ more than twenty years
ago,─ I believed, and said, that they are in characters of the tenth century A.D. ; that is to
say, I took them as having been put on the stones in the recorded year A.D. 968-69, in the
time of Noḷambântaka-Mârasiṁha II. And I too carelessly endorsed that belief in 1894,[2] without
examining impressions of them again. That belief was wrong. The characters are of an
appreciably later date, and are fairly referable to the second half of the eleventh century A.D.
And there is no doubt that these records were put on the stones in connection with the rebuilding
of the Jain temples and the restoration of their endowments under the Western Châlukyas
of Kalyâṇi, after the end of the Chôḷa occupation, and for the purpose of what Sir Walter Elliot
has called “ the unification of the titles.”[3]
As regards the historical value of them,─ it is
obvious that the Chalukya records are, at the best, only copies of originals, to be taken
for what they may be worth ; and, for the present, we need only remarks that, with the exception
of the record of Satyâśraya-(Pulakêśin II.) and the Sêndra prince Durgaśakti, they are plainly
based, more or less directly, on original charters which were deciphered intelligently,─
that they are questionable, as dishonest records, only in so far as the writers of them may
have substituted names of villages and grantees, to suit their own purposes, for other names
standing in the originals,─ and that, apparently, the only specially important item in them
is the mention of the name Pûjyapâda, as that of the teacher of the alleged grantee, in the
record of A.D. 730.[4] As regards the Gaṅga records,─ they are questionable in the same
way, as dishonest records, in so far as they may put forward fraudulent claims to property.
The one that has been edited in full, includes the first three steps of the fictitious pedigree ;
and, therefore, it was based, in that portion, either on a spurious record, or on a draft of which
the ultimate origin is to be traced to the spurious records. But that fact does not make
it itself necessarily a dishonest record ; because, by the time when it was put on the stone,
the fictitious pedigree had evidently become an accepted story, liable to be quoted in even bonâ fide records. Even as regards the fictitious pedigree, it makes a mistake, in representing
Noḷambântaka-Mârasiṁha II. as the younger brother of the imaginary Harivarman of the third
generation. This, however, is a detail, of no real importance, which may be accounted for
in any way that may seem appropriate. And the only item of special interest, that can be
found in the record at present, is the mention of a Jain temple called Mukkaravasati.[5] The
important point, for the present, is, that this record was put on the stone about a century
later than the date recorded in it, which is a date that fell during the period of Noḷambântaka-Mârasiṁha II., and that, consequently, it does not place in the time of that prince the first
attempt to devise the fictitious pedigree.
In the second place, when I formed the conclusions that I presented in 1894, we knew of
but very few Western Gaṅga records, beyond these Lakshmêshwar inscriptions and the spurious
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[1] Noticed, but not edited in full, Ind. Ant. Vol. p. 111.
[2] Above, Vol. III. p. 172, note 4.
[3] Coins of Southern India, p. 114.
[4] The possible bearing of this is too complicated a matter to be gone into on the present occasion.
[5] It is mentioned, incidentally, among the boundaries of one of the properties claims by the record.
The mention of it suggests that, at some time before the eleventh century, there was a person named Mukkara,
by whom the temple was founded, or after whom it was named. All else that can be said, is, that, if there
was such a person, he may have been a Gaṅga─ (which, however, the record does not assert),─ or he may
have belonged to any other family, and that it is highly probable that he was the person from whom there
was evolved the imaginary Mokkara, or Mushkara, the alleged grandfather of Śivamâra I., of the spurious grants.
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