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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA positive evidence, looking quite the other way, furnished by the copper-plate inscriptions, and to render the first line of verse 22 void of all meaning. The last of verse 22 tells us that Gôvinda IV. was known as Sâhasâṅka in consequence of his unparalleled heroic deeds. Verse 23 states that, although he had the appellation Prabhûtavarsha, he was styled Suvarṇavarsha, because he rained down showers of gold and made the whole world golden. This means that Gôvinda IV. had previously the usual epithet Prabhûtavarsha, but that, on account of his profuse munificence, he earned for himself the additional biruda of Suvarnavarsha. And deservedly was he styled Suvarṇavarsha. It was been mentioned above, in the summary of the contents of the formal part of the inscription, that Gôvinda IV. weighed himself against gold, bestowed upon the Brâhmaṇa no less than six hundred grants, together with three lacs of suvarṇas, and granted, for repairing temples and feeding and clothing ascetics, eight hundred villages, four lacs of suvarṇas and thirty-two lacs of drammas. Such exuberant liberality no other prince of the Râshṭrakûṭa dynasty ever displayed, so far as their records informs us.
Little that is historically important can be gleaned from the remaining verses (24-31). Some historical fact, however, is undoubtedly contained in verse 28, wherein the Gaṅgâ and Yamunâ are represented as doing service at Gôvinda IV.’s palace. The exact sense of this can be determined by the consideration of two other epigraphic references to the same fact. The Baroda charter of the Gujarât Râshṭrakûta prince Karka asserts that Gôvinda III., “after taking away simultaneously from his enemies (the rivers) Gaṅgâ and Yamunâ, charming through their waves, attained to the best and highest rank, by means of the display of the actual signs (of those rivers).”[1] This clearly means that Gôvinda III. wrested the territory intervening between the Ganges and the Jumna from a prince belonging to some northern dynasty, and assumed their signs as a part of his insignia. The same fact is mentioned in a Nerûr grant, wherein the early Chalukya prince Vijayâditya is represented as fighting before his own father with the hostile kings of Northern India, and securing for his father Vinayâditya the signs of the Gangâ and Yamunâ among other insignia of paramount sovereignty.[2] When, therefore, the Gaṅgâ and Yamunâ are mentioned as doing service in the palace of Gôvinda IV., a similar thing is intended, viz., either that, after an expedition of conquest against Northern India, he added the signs of these rivers to his insignia, or that he inherited these signs from some one of his predecessors, perhaps his own father Indra III, who, as we have seen above, overran Northern India.
There now remains to be noticed the preamble of the prose passages, preceding the formal
part of the inscription. These set forth the various appellations by which Gôvinda IV. was
known. The topic of the appellations of the Râshṭrakûṭa princes has already been handled in
[1] Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 159, text lines 22 and 23. Here Dr. Fleet perceives a distinct allusion to some
conquest over the Chalukyas, whether Western or Eastern, and further propounds the theory that the Râshṭrakûṭas wrested these signs from the Chalukyas, and the Chalukyas from the Early Guptas (loc. cit. pp. 157 and
248 ; Dyn. Kan. Distr. p. 338, note 7). In my humble opinion, the word cha in the second line of the verse,
wherein Gôvinda III.’s assumption of the signs of the Gaṅga and the Yamunâ is mentioned, clearly indicates that
he first conquered the regions round about the Ganges and the Jumna and then adopted the signs of these rivers as
part of his insignia. Dr. Fleet himself recognises this fact (loc. cit. p. 157). If so, I cannot understand how
Gôvinda III. wrested these signs from the Chalukyas, whether Western or Eastern, who were ruling in the
Dekhan, far away from the Ganges and the Jumna. Again, I fail to understand how the Chalukyas, towards the
end of the seventh century, wrested these signs from the Early Guptas, whose power was extinct by the middle of
the sixth century A.D. The view which I have put forth here is, that an expedition of conquest in the regions
round about the Ganges and the Jumna entitled both Gôvinda III, and Vijayâditya to add the signs of these rivers
to their insignia. The same may also be said in regard to Gôvinda IV. ; but, as we do not know for certain that
he ever invaded Northern India, and as we do know that his father Indra III. overran it, it is equally reasonable
to suppose that Gôvinda IV. perhaps inherited these signs from his father. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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