South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI OF SARAYUPARA

It seems that there was some trouble during the reign of Bhīma which caused him the loss of his throne. The nature of the trouble is, however, not known.1 Perhaps, there was an invasion of the country by some enemy. When the enemy retired or was ousted from the country, Vyāsa, the son of Gunasāgara, got himself crowned at the capital of Gōkulaghatta on the 31st may 1031 A.C.

Kielhorn identified Gunasāgara, the father of Vyāsa, with Gunasāgara II, who was the great-grandfather of Vyāsa’s predecessor Bhīma.2 Vyāsa would thus have come to the throne after his grand-nephew. This seems improbable. Besides, Vyāsa apparently began to reign when young; for, his successor Sōdhadēva was ruling at least till 1079 A.C., which date is 48 years later than that of Vyāsa’s accession. It seems better, therefore, to suppose that Gunasāgara was a biruda of Bhima, the predecessor of Vyāsa.3 This conjecture receives support from the description in the plates that Vyāsa was established on his father’s throne.

Vyāsa alias Maryādāsāgara was succeeded by Sōdhadēva who issued the Kahla plates on the occasion of the Uttarāyana-sankrānti in 1077 A.C. In these plates both he and his father are mentioned with full imperial titles, viz., Paramabhattāraka, Mahārājādhirāja and Paramēśvara. The period of their rule falls in the heyday of Kalachuri imperialism when the mighty emperors Gāngēyadēva and Karna had extended their dominion to the Banaras District, south of the Sarayū. The assumption of imperial titles by these rulers of Saryūpāra plainly indicates that they did not owe allegiance even to Gāngēya and Karna. The use of the Vikrama instead of the Kalachuri Samvat in dating the Kahla grant points to the same direction. The relations of the two Kalachuri families may, however, have continued to be friendly and they may have gone to each other’s rescue in time of difficulties.

Sōdhadēva is the last known prince of this Sarayūpāra branch. Soon after the issue of his Kahla plates, he seems to have lost the support of the Tripurī Kalachuris; for, Yaśahkarna was then ousted from the Banaras District by the Gāhadavāla king Chandradēva. The Chandrāvatī plates dated V. 1148 (1090 A.C.), which are the earliest record of the Gāhadavālas discovered in the Banaras District, plainly indicate that Yaśahkarna had lost Banaras to Chandradēva before that date.4 The Gāhadavālas may have next pressed further to the north and supplanted the Kalachuris in the Sarayūpāra country. Perhaps the Rāshtrakūtas ruling on the other side of the Gandakī played5 their part in the extermination of their neighbours. Yaśahkarna’s raid against Champāranya, which was plainly directed against these Rāshtrakūtas and in the course of which he devastated their country, may have been prompted by a feeling of vengeance. Yaśahkarna did not, however, succeed in restoring the Sarayūpāra country to his kinsmen. This Kalachuri family thus disappeared from history in the last decade of the eleventh century A.C.
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¹The Kahla plates ascribe the loss of the throne to the misfortune of Bhīma. If there was an invasion of the country, it may have been by Mahārājādhirāja Gāngēyadēva, a Rāshtrakūta king ruling over the neighbouring country of Tīrabhukti on the other side of the Gandakī A MS. of the Kishkindhā-kānda of the Rāmāyana deposited in the Nepal Durbar Library mentions the date, V. 1076 (1019 A.C.), of this kings’s reign. For the identification of this Gāngēyadēva, see A.B.O.R.I. (Silver Jubilee Number), pp. 291 ff. and above, p. lxxxix, n. 5.
²Ep. Ind., VoI. VII, p. 86.
³Another similar case is that of Maryādāsāgara which from 1. 33 of the Kahla plates appears to be a biruda of Vyāsa, though this is not stated explicitly in the plates.
⁴Ep. Ind., VoI. IX, pp. 302 ff.
⁵I have shown elsewhere that a Rāshtrakūta family was ruling over Tīrabhukti (modern Tirhut) in the tenth and eleventh centuries A.C. A.B.O.R.I.(Silver Jubliee Number), p. 301.