South Indian Inscriptions

THE EARLY GURJARAS

of the Kalachuri Śankaragana. Śubsequently the country was under the direct rule of the Kalachuris as shown by Buddharāja’s Sarsavnī grant: The Gurjaras, therefore, came into possession of it after the Kalachuris. The sign-manuals of the Gurjara princes are in northern characters, though their grants are written in the southern script. This clearly indicates their northern origin. Dr. R. C. Majumdar has shown that Dadda I was probably identical with the homonymous son of the Brāhmana Harichandra from his Kshatriya wife Bhadrā, who is mentioned in the Jodhpur inscription of the Pratīhāra Bāuka¹ and who probably flourished about 575 A. C.² He was apparently ruling somewhere in the vicinity of Māndavyapura (modern Māndōr near Jodhpur), which he and his brothers are said to have conquered. The connection of the two families is also indicated by the similarities of some names noticed in them.³

No records of Dadda I have yet been discovered, but from the Kairā grants⁴ of his grandson we learn that he was a devotee of the Sun. We are again told that the lands at the foot of the Vindhya mountain delighted him, which seems to suggest that he raided the country up to the Vindhya mountain from his base in Rajputana. He may be referred to the period 570-595 A. C.

About his son and successor Jayabhata I, we know very little. From the biruda Vītarāga, ‘one whose passion has vanished’, applied to him, he seems to have been a man of tranquil nature. He had two sons, Dadda II who succeeded him and Ranagraha who was apparently placed by his brother in charge of the eastern part of his kingdom. Jayabhata I may have flourished from circa 595 A. C. to 620 A.C.

Dadda II alias Praśāntarāga, ‘one whose passion has subsided’, is known from several inscriptions. He was the real founder of the Gurjara kingdom in the Lāta country. His Kairā plates (two sets) are dated in K.380(629-30 A.C.) and K. 385 (634-35 A.C.), and record the grant of Sirīshapadraka (modern Sisōdrā, II miles from Anklēśvar in the Broach District) to certain Brāhmanas. Two other sets of Plates,⁵ issued on the same day in K.392 (641-2 A.C.), register the grant of two fields in the village Kshīrasara in the vishaya(district) of Sangamakhētaka (modern Sankhēdā prānt of the Baroda District). He is also mentioned in a fragmentary Sankhēdā grant⁶ of his brother Ranagraha, dated K. 391. As stated above, he was obliged to acknowledge the suzerainty of Pulakēśin II soon after he carved out a kingdom for himself in the lower Narmadā valley. On the seals of his plates he is styled Sāmanta or a feudal lord, while in his grants he is said to have won the Pañchamahā śabda (the right to use the five great sounds). Like his grandfather, he was a devotee of the Sun.

Dadda II heads the genealogy in all later records. His descendants took pride in describing him as one ‘who had a canopy of glory, possessing the grace of a moving large and white cloud, which had sprung from his protection of the king of Valabhī when he was attacked by the Emperor, the illustrious Harshadēva.'⁷ It has been recognized that Dadda II, the ruler of a petty state, a mere Sāmanta, could not have, unaided, given protection
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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XVIII, p. 91.
² Majumdar places his father Harichandra in about 550 A. C.
³ Viz., two Nāgabhatas in the Māndōr line and four Jayabhatas in the Gujarat line It must, however, be noted that the Māndōr line traces itself back to Lakshmana, the brother of Rāma, while the Gujarat line claims to have descended from Karna, a hero of the Bhārata war. But both these Pauranic pedigrees were invented in later times—the former in the ninth and the latter in the seventh century A. C.
⁴ Nos. 16 and 17.
⁵ Nos. 19 and 20.
⁶ No. 18. Three other grants purporting to have been issued by Dadda II are dated in Ś. 400, Ś. 414 and Ś. 417, but they are spurious. See Bom. Gaz., Vol. I, pt. i, pp. 117 ff.
⁷ Below, p. 85. The expression occurs in Nos. 21, 22 and 24.