South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

furnished by this inscription, and the genealogy of the Râshṭrakûṭa princes from Gôvindarâja I. to Amôghavarsha I., as we know it from their copper-plates.

From this inscription.

1 In the Yâdava lineage, Gôvinda, son of Prichchhakarâja.
2 Karkara, son of king Indra.
3 His son Dantidurga.
4 Śubhatuṅgavallabha-Akâlavarsha.
5. Prabhûtavarsha, son of Dhârâvarsha.
6 His son Prabhûtavarsha-Jagattuṅga.
7. Amôghavarsha.

From the copper-plates.

Gôvindarâja I.
His son Kakkarâja or Karkarâja.
His son Indrarâja.
His son Dantidurga.
Śubhatuṅga-Akâlavarsha (Kṛishṇaraja I.,
son of Kakkarâja).
His son Prabhûtavarsha^[1] (Govindarâja II.).
His younger brother (Dhruvarâja-Nirupama)
Dhârâvarsha.
His son Prabhûtavarsha-Jagattuṅga (Gô-
vindarâja III.).
His sin Amôghavarsha.

From the above it will be seen that, excepting the strange name Prichchhakarâja^[2] for which I cannot account, the same names, though not always written uniformly, are there on either side. But to the writer of this part of our inscription the mutual relationship of the princes whose names he knew, apparently was a riddle. He therefore either observed a discreet silence or perpetrated such blunders as to make Karkara the son of Indrarâja, whereas he was his father ; or to put down Prabhûtavarsha as the son of Dhârâvarsha, to omit Dhârâvarsha altogether from the line of kings, and then to make Prabhûtavarsha-Jagattuṅga the son of Prabhûtavarsha. Moreover, the assignment of these kings to the Yâdava lineage,^[3] and especially the occurrence of the name Karkara,^[4] instead of Kakkarâja or Karkarâja, seem clearly to indicate that the genealogy was concocted some time after the date which is recorded in this inscription, and has not been copied from a genuine copper-plate charter of Amôghavarsha I.

The person with whom our inscription is chiefly concerned, is Baṅkêśa or, as the name also is written, Baṅkêya, or Baṅkêyarâja, by Amôghavarsha’s favour in the enjoyment of, or governing, thirty-thousand villages the most important of which was Vanavâsî (verse 21). As reported by Dr. Fleet,^[5] an unpublished inscription at Niḍagundi in the Dhârwâr district mentions, as a feudatory of Amôghavarsha I., Baṅkeyarasa, governor of the Banavâsi twelve-thousand, the Beḷgali three-hundred, the Kundarage seventy, the Kundûr five-hundred, and the Purigere three-hundred, who apparently is the same personage. According to our inscription, Baṅkêśa alias Sella-kêtana was the son of Adhôra (or Âdhôra), proprietor of Koḷanûra, and his wife Vijayâṅkâ, and grandson of Erakôri, of the Mukuḷa family (kula ; vv. 17-19). The name Baṅkêśa (or Baṅkêya) together with the biruda Sellakêtana identify

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^[1] I take this name from the Kaḍaba plates.
^[2] According to the fragmentary Ellôrâ Daśâvatâra cave temple inscription (Archæol. Surv. of West. India, Vol. V. p. 87) Gôvindarâja I. was the son of Indrarâja.
^[3] In line 17 of the Waṇî plates of Gôvindarâja III. of Śaka-Saṁvat 730 (Ind. Ant. Vol. XI. p. 157) the Yâdava vaṁśa is mentioned by way of comparison ; but the earliest plates in which the Râshṭrakûṭas are stated to belong to the Yadûnâṁ vaṁśa, are the Nausârî plates of Śaka-Saṁvat 836.
^[4] The earlier inscriptions have only the names Kakkarâja and Karkarâja ; the name Kakkala occurs in the Kardâ plates of Śaka-Saṁvat 894 (Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 264), in the Guṇḍûr inscription of Śaka-Saṁvat 896 (ibid. p. 271), and in later inscriptions ; and Karkara I first meet with in the Kauṭhêṁ plates of Śaka-Saṁvat 930 (ibid. Vol. XVI. p. 23, l. 41 of the text).
^[5] See Dynasties, p. 403. Dr. Fleet has informed me that in the Niḍagundi inscription Paṅkêya is described as Chellakêtana śrîmat Baṁkeyarasa, but is also called simply Baṅkeya. See below.