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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA copper-plate grants from Sûḍi and Mysore. Since then, Mr. Rice has given us, in his Epigraphia Carnatica, Vols. III. and IV., about a hundred records on stone, from Mysore, which he has referred to the Gaṅga period, and nearly all of which are genuine and have been properly so referred. And we have further, in the way of genuine records, the Vaḷḷimalai inscription of Râjamalla grandson of Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa, from the North Arcot district,─ the Biḷiûr, Peggu-ûr, and Kôtûr inscriptions, from Coorg,─ the Bêgûr inscription of Ereyappa and the Śravaṇa-Beḷgoḷa epitaph of Noḷambântaka-Mârasiṁha II., from Mysore,─ and, from the Dhârwâr district, the Adaraguñchi and Guṇḍûr inscriptions of the same prince and the Hebbâḷ inscription of A.D. 975. Neither anywhere in the whole of this mass of genuine materials, nor in any other such record known to me, is there the slightest allusion to, or hint of, the fictitious genealogy, anterior to Śivamâra I., that is presented in the spurious records. And it is now plain that that genealogy was not claimed by Śivamâra I. and his descendants, but was simply evolved by the persons who fabricated the forged grants, in concocting the necessary pseudo-historical portions their spurious title-deeds.
The general subject of Purâṇic genealogies will be an interesting topic for examination on some future occasion. Meanwhile, in respect of such of the great families of Southern India as can be traced back to before A.D. 1000, the position is as follows. The earliest such genealogy that we meet with, in any but a merely allusive and rudimentary form, is that of the Pallavas of Kâñchî ; and it appears first in the Kûram grant of the second half of the seventh century A.D.[1] We meet next, as a matter of certainty, with that of the Râshṭrakûṭas of Mâlkhêḍ, in the Nausârî grants of A.D. 915.[2] And that of the Yâdavas of the Sêuṇa country, from whom sprang the Yâdavas of Dêvagiri, is first found in the Saṁgamnêr grant of A.D. 1000.[3] As a matter of certainty, the Purâṇic genealogy of the Chôḷas is first met with in the so-called Leiden grant of A.D. 1019 or 1020 ;[4] but it would be carried back, in somewhat different forms, to the period A.D. 900 to 940, if a fragmentary grant of Vîra-Chôḷa from Udayêndiram[5] is a genuine original record and is referable to the time of Parântaka I.,[6]─ and to the year A.D. 915, if the Udayêndiram grant of the Gaṅga-Bâṇa prince Hastimalla-Pṛithivîpati II., dated in the fifteenth year of Parântaka I.,[7] is, again, a genuine original record actually drawn up in that year.[8] The full Purâṇic genealogy and legendary history of the Chalukyas are first met with in a record of the eastern branch, the Korumelli grant of the period A.D. 1022 to 1063.[9] And the Purâṇic genealogy and legendary history of the Eastern Gaṅgas of Kaliṅganagara are first found in a grant that bears the date of A.D. 1118-19.[10] These are the dates at which, as far as our information goes at present, the genealogies are first met with. But, obviously, each of the genealogies had been selected, thought over, and elaborated, at a time appreciably earlier than that at which we first come across it. The earliest of them was that of the Pallavas. It was, probably, a discovery of it, in some ancient record, that set the fashion which became so general. And all the historical considerations point to the latter half of the families of Southern India applied themselves to putting forward, or in some cases elaborating, claims to descent from the Lunar and Solar Races, and to working up their own traditions so as to establish presentable historical connections with those races. In the way of fictitious pedigrees of a pretended historical kind, without Purâṇic introductions, we have an instance in that of the Kâdambas of Hângal,─ from the name of ___________________________________ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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