South Indian Inscriptions

DYNASTY OF HARISCHANDRA

while Navasārikā, modern Navsāri in the Surat District, was the capital of Śryāśraya-Śīlā-ditya and Avanijanāśraya-Pulakēśin. The grant of K. 421 was made by Śryāśraya Śīlāditya while residing at Navasāri. This was also probably the place of issue in the case of Pulakēśirāja’s Navsāri plates, though there is no specific mention to that effect. The Gujarat Chālukyas were patrons of Hinduism. They were devout worshippers of Mahēśvara. All their known grants were made to Brāhmanas for the maintenance of the five great sacrifices and such other rites.

THE DYNASTY OF HARISCHANDRA

Two sets of Anjaneri plates¹ recently discovered have brought to light a new feudatory family which ruled over Northern Konkan and the Nasik District in the seventh and eighth centuries A. C. This family claimed descent from Hariśchandra, doubtless the famous legendary king of the solar race. Svāmichandra, who heads the genealogical list in both the Anjaneri grants, rose to power during the reign of Vikramāditya I. The Anjaneri plates inform us that the Chālukya Emperor loved him as his own son, and it was doubtless by his favour that he became the ruler of ‘the entire Konkan country consisting of fourteen thousand villages.’ As one of the Anjaneri grants of his grandson Bhōgaśakti is dated in 710-11 A. C., Svāmichandra must have flourished about 660 A. C. Vikramāditya I seems to have appointed him first to rule over Konkan.² Svāmichandra’s descendants continued to mention gratefully this favour of Vikramāditya I, though they made no reference to the contemporary Chālukya suzerain Bādāmi.³

Three generations of this family are known from the Anjaneri plates––Svāmichandra, his son Simhavarman and the latter’s son Bhōgaśakti alias Prithivīchandra (the Moon on the earth) who made the two grants. The name of the last prince recalls similar names of Sēndraka princes which also end in śakti. The question, therefore, arises if these princes belonged to the same clan as the Sēndrakas. It must, however, be noted that as Bhōgaśakti traced his descent from Hariśchandra, he could not have belonged to the Sēndraka family which claimed connection with the Nāga race. The lion seal of the Anjaneri plates and the use of small circles to embellish the tops and corners of the letters incised on them indicate some sort of connection with the Kadambas; for we find these peculiarities in the Bannahalli plates of the Kadamba king Krishnavarman II.

Of the two copper-plate inscriptions of this family edited here, that which is dated K. 461 (710-11 A. C.) records the grant of eight villages and certain rights, dues and taxes

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¹ Nos. 31 and 32.
²The Sanjān plates, edited by Mr. Jackson in J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. XX, pp. 40 ff., purport to record the grant of Buddhavarasarāja, a younger brother of Pulakēśin II, on the occasion of a solar eclipse in the month of Pausha. The plates are not dated, but as the genealogy of the Imperial family is carried down to Vikramāditya I, they purport to belong to his reign. The only year during the period from 645 A. C. to 680 A,C. in which there was a solar eclipse in the amānta Pausha was 660 A.C. Buddhavarasa may, therefore be regarded as a predecessor of Svāmichandra in Northern Konkan; but the plates are probably spurious; because (1) though Buddhavarasarāja claims to be a Chālukya, the emblem on his seal is the figure of a lion and not that of a boar; (2) the grant is very incorrectly written and contains two long expressions borrowed verbatim from II. 10-11 of the Bagumrā grant of Allaśakti. The record seems to have been fabricated with the help of Chālukya and Sēndraka grants, and the seal was formed on the model of that of Bhōgaśakti’s grants. Prof. Sten Konow also, who has re-edited the grant in Ep. Ind.,Vol. XIV, pp. 144 ff., regards the plates as spurious.
³ In 671 A.C. Vikramaditya I appears to have transferred Thana and some other districts of North Konkan to Dharaśraya-Jayasimha. See above, p. lx.