South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

district,^[1] which refers itself to the time when Dhârâvarsha-Śrîvallabha was reigning over the earth, and Kambharasa was [governing] the (Gaṅgavâḍi) ninety-six-thousand province : here, the immediate collocation of the two birudas admits of no interpretation except that they belonged to one and the same person, and that he was both Dhârâvarsha and Srîvallabha ; and Dhârâvarsha, as we have already seen, was Dhruva. And another is an inscription at Śravaṇa-Beḷgoḷa,^[2] which, mentioning the Kambharasa of the preceding record as Raṇâvalôka-Kambayya and describing him as reigning over the earth, speaks of him as the son of the Paramêśvara and Mahârâja Śrîvallabha. For these two records we are indebted to Mr. Rice. In connection with the sound of them, we take another record, also brought to notice by him ; namely, a copper-plate grant from Maṇṇe, which purports to have been issued in A.D. 802.^[3] It expressly mentions Raṇâvalôka-Kambhadêva as the elder brother of Pṛithuvîvallabha-Prabhûtavarsha-Gôvindarâjadêva, who, it says, meditated on the feet ( i.e. was the successor ) of the Paramabhaṭṭâraka, Mahârâjâdhirâja, and Paramêśvara Dhârâvarshadêva. The Gôvindarâjadêva of this passage is shewn, by the verses in the genealogical introduction of the record, to be Gôvinda III., son of Nirupama-Kalivallabha-Dhôra, i.e. Dhruva. His elder brother Ranavalôka-Kambhadêva was, therefore, also a son of Dhruva. Accordingly, in the Śravaṇa-Beḷgoḷa inscription, again, the biruda Śrîvallabha denotes Dhruva. And thus we have the biruda Śrîvallabha thoroughly well established as a leading and distinctive appellation of Dhruva also, and so pointedly that it is most probably he who is intended by that biruda in the Lakshmêshwar inscription, C. above.

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The date of Dhruva.

The importance of the point that Śrîvallabha was a leading and distinctive biruda of Dhruva lies in the fact that we are thereby enabled to fix an actual date for him.

That date is supplied by a passage in the Jain Harivaṁśa of Jinasêna, which tells us that that work was finished in Śaka-Saṁvat 705 (expired), = A.D. 783-84, when there were reigning,─ in various directions determined with reference to a town named Vardhamânapura, which is to be identified with the modern Waḍhwâṇ in the Jhâlâvâḍ division of Kâṭhiâwâr,─ in the north, Indrâyudha ; in the south, Śrîvallabha ; in the east, Vatsarâja, king of Avanti

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^[1] Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Hg., 93.─ In answer to a reference, Mr. Rice has been kind enough to assure me that the Śrîvalla[bha] follows Dhârâvarisha without any interval ; that line 1 contains less matter than the other lines because the letters are larger ; and that there is no doubt whatever about the word Kambharasar. There can, of course, be no question about the correctness of supplying bha as the akshara which is more or less damaged and illegible after śrî-Dhârâvarisha-Śrîvalla. And the damaged and illegible akshara after the bha must be a final n or r.
^[2] Inscrs. at Śrav.-Beḷ. No. 24.─ I have to make the following remarks on this record, from an ink-impression. Line 2 ends with Śrîballabha. At the beginning of line 3, five aksharas are (judging by the impression) hopelessly damaged and illegible. Then we have, distinctly, jâdhi. And then, after a space representing three full-size square aksharas such as ja, dha, ma, etc.,─ apparently equally damaged and illegible,─ we have m[ê]śvara-mahâr[â]jarâ magandir Raṇâvaḷôka-śrî-Kambayyan, etc. The lacunӕ may be appropriately and exactly filled in by reading Śrîballabha-[Dhruva-mahârâ]jâdhi[râja-para]m[ê]śvara-mahâr[â]jarâ ; to which the only objection is the use of both titles, mahârâjâdhirâja and maharaja : and I do not see any other way in which they can be appropriately and exactly filled in, unless we should read Śrîballabha-[Dhârâvarsha-râ]jâdhi[râja-para]m[ê]-śvara-mahâr[â]jarâ, which is open to a similar objection and, further, does not adapt itself to such marks as are discernible. But, of course, it is by pure conjecture that the actual name Dhruva is supplied here ; except that there is a mark, in exactly the proper place, which dose look like an r attached to an akshara consisting of a consonant with its vowel.─ On the subject of this record, see also Dyn. Kan. Distrs. p. 397, note 1 ; the view suggested there is, of course, now withdrawn.
^[3] See Ep. Carn. Vol. IV. Introd. p. 5. I have photographs of this record, for which I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Rice.