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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
piecing together the items of information furnished by the these two charters, we find that Dharmapâla
defeated a prince named Indrarâja, and acquired for himself the sovereignty of Mahôdaya or
Kanauj, i.e. the supremacy of Pañchâla, but conferred it upon Chakrâyudha, according to the
Bhâgalpur plates, and upon the king of Kanyakubja, according to the Khâlimpur plates. Further,
as Dharmapâla wrested the sovereignty of Mahôdaya or Kanyakubja, not from the king of Kanyakubja himself, but from Indrarâja, and bestowed it upon the king of Kanyakubja, the conclusion
is irresistible that Indrarâja must have vanquished the king of Kanauj and occupied his capital
before he himself suffered defeat at the hands of Dharmapâla. What we find, therefore, from
these two charters is, that (i) Indrarâja vanquished the king of Kanyakubja, but (ii) was afterwards defeated by Dharmapâla ; and that (iii) the king of Kanyakubja, who was ousted by Indrarâja, was restored to his throne by Dharmapâla; whereas the facts we have above ascertained from verse 19 of our grant and a Khajurâho inscription are, that (i) the Râshṭrakûṭa
prince Indra III. reduced Mahôdaya or Kanauj and deprived its ruler of his dominions, that
(ii) the name of this ruler was Kshitipâla or Mahîpâla, and that (iii) Kshitipâla or Mahîpâla
regained his lost possessions through the assistance of the Chandêlla king Harshadêva. Thus
in both cases we have a king named Indrarâja, who attacked Mahôdaya or Kanauj and ousted
the king of Kanyakubja. The Indrarâja,[1] therefore, mentioned in the Bhâgalpur and Khâlimpur grants must be identical with the Râshṭrakûṭa prince Indra III., and the king of Kanyakubja, whom he vanquished, is doubtless Kshitipâla or Mahîpâla. But the honour of placing
Kshitipâla on his throne is claimed for the Chandêlla prince Harshadêva by the Khajurâho
inscription above alluded to, and for Dharmapâla by the Bhâgalpur and Khâlimpur charters.
And what in all likelihood must have come to pass is, that both Harshadêva and Dharmapâla
placed Kshitipâla on his throne.
There remains another conclusion yet to be deduced from the Bhâgalpur grant. The king of
Mahôdaya or Kanyakubja, whom Indrarâja ousted, is mentioned therein as Chakrâyudha. And
we have just shown that this king of Mahôdaya was Kshitipâla or Mahîpâla. Kshitipâla, therefore, appears to have borne the epithet Chakrâyudha. Now, the Nausârî charters[2] of the Râshṭrakûṭa prince Indra III. contain a verse, wherein Indra is represented to have conquered Upêndra. Of course, the terms Indra and Upêndra, according to one sense, refer to the gods Indra and
Upêndra; but when we take them in their other sense, what the verse means to state is, that
the Râshṭrakûṭa prince Indra III. vanquished a certain prince of the name of Upêndra. Upêndra
is another name for Vishṇu, and Vishṇu is also known by the name Chakrâyudha. The allusion,
therefore, in the Nausârî grants most probably refers to the defeat of Kshitipâla, mentioned by
the name Chankrâyudha in the Bhâgalpur charter. The Nausârî and Bhâgalpur grants thus
corroborate each other, and consequently there can be little doubt that Kshitipâla also bore the
epithet Chakrâyudha or Upêndra.[3]
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[1] In J. B. A. S. Vol. LXIII. p. 62, Mr. Batavyal has expressed the opinion that Indra, brother of the Râshṭrakûṭa prince Gôvinda III., is the same as the Indrarâja of the Bhâgalpur charter, and the Lâṭêśvar-maṇḍala, which he is mentioned in the Kâvî grant to have received from this Gôvinda III., may be identical with the kingdom of Kanauj. I leave it to those who are interested in the subject to judge of the correctness of this view.
[2] J. Bo. Br. R. A. S. Vol. XLIX. pp. 259 and 263.
[3] In his note on verse 3 of the Bhâgalpur charter in Ind. Ant. Vol. XX. p. 188, Prof. Kielhorn suggests that,
just as Bali wrested the sovereignty of the three worlds from the god Indra and gave it to Upêndra-Chakrâyudha,
his younger brother, so Dharmapâla took away the kingdom of a prince named Indra and made it over to the prince
Chakrâyudha, whom, on the analogy of the mythological allusion, he thinks to be a brother of the prince Indra. In
this note he proposes, with some diffidence, that this name Chakrâyudha points to Âdivarâha, which was another
name of Bhôjadêva of Kanauj. In his paper on the Khâlimpur plate of Dharmapâladêva (above, Vol. IV. p. 246,
note 1) he puts forth the conjecture that there was some connection between Indra and Chakrâyudha of the Bhâgalpur grant and Indrâyudha, who is spoken of as governing the north in the colophon of the Jaina HarivaṁśaPurâṇa, meaning thereby, if I have correctly understood him, that Indra is identical with Indrâyudha and that
both Indrâyudha and Chakrâyudha belonged to one and the same family. But now our plates have conclusively
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