South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI OF SOUTH KOSALA

into a monkey, but regained his original form by the favour of Sindhurāja. In gratefulness Śaśikhanda brings his troops to help the king in his expedition. The allied armies surround the town Ratnavatī. A battle is fought. Ramāngada, the minister of Sindhu- rāja, kills Viśvānkuśa, the son of Vajrānkuśa. The king himself kills Vajrānkuśa. The town Ratnavatī is stormed and taken. A snake youth named Ratnachūda is made the Governor of the Kingdom of the Asura King. The king takes possession of the golden lotus flowers and proceeds towards Bhōgavatī. He presents the golden flowers to Śaśiprabhā and marries her. Śankhapāla makes the king the present of a crystal Śivalinga made by Tvashtri. The king returns to Ujjayinī and then to Dhārā where he establishes the crystal Śivalinga.”

The foregoing brief analysis of the Navasāhasānkacharita will show that the poem was intended to celebrate Sindhurāja’s victory over Vajrānkuśa in which he was aided by a Vidyādhara prince and a Nāga chieftain, and his matrimonial alliance with the latter. This campaign of Sindhurāja must be placed late in his reign, probably towards the end of the first decade of the eleventh century A.C.; for, he is described in this work as having already vanquished the kings of Kuntala, kachchha, Lāta, Aparānta and Kōsala as well as a Hūna prince.¹ The poets’s description that he had to cross the Naramadā on the way shows that the country of Vajrānkuśa lay to the south of the river. Vajrānkuśa was not a prince of the demons, but a chief of the aborigines, perhaps Gonds, whose capital Ratnavati must be looked for in the hilly regions not far from the Naramdā; for, we have a valuable hint for its location in the speech of the river goddess that it lay at a distance of 50 gavyūtis or 100 krōśas, i.e, about 200 miles from the place where Sindhurāja crossed the river. Like Rājasekhara, Padmagupta seems to have slightly altered the names of the historical characters and places that figure in his poem. Vajrānkuśa, the demon king, is, therefore, probably identical with Vajjūka² (also called Vajuvarman in one record³), the lord of the Kōmō mandala. He was a powerful chief, as his matrimonial alliance with the Kalachuris is mentioned in several Kalachuri records. He flourished in the same period as Sindhurāja ; for, his daughter Nonallā was married to Ratnarāja, the son of Kamalarāja who, as we have seen, was a contemporary of the Kalachuri Gāngēyadēva.⁴

The identification of Vajjūka with Vajrānkuśa is rendered probable by the mention of the hermitage of the sage Vanku, which lay on the way of Ratnavati, the capital of Vajrānakuśa. The name of the sage appears to be connected with that of the god Vankēśvara whose temple was erected in Tummāna.S 5 Knowing as we do that the names of deities are often derived from those of the individuals who instal them or erect temples in their honour, we can easily conjecture that Vankēśvara may have been installed by some one named Vanku and that he may well have been a sage as stated in the Navasāhasānkacharita.

Vajrānkuśa's capital was Ratnavati, which it is tempting to identify with the Kalachuri capital Ratnapura, but the identification is open to the objection that Ratnapura was founded by Ratnadēva I⁶ and hence it could not have been in existence in this period. According
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¹NSCH., canto X, vv. 14-20.
²No. 77, 1.13.
³No. 76, 1. 17.
⁴The identification may be open to the objection that if Vajjūka was killed in battle as stated in the NSCH., canto XVII, v. 69. he could not have given his daughter to Ratnadēva I who flourshied two generations later. Perhaps Vajrānkuśa is meant to represent the grandfather of Vajjūka, who may have borne the same name. In India grandsons are often named after their grandfathers.
⁵Vankēśvara was the tutelary deity of the Kalachuris of Dakshina Kōsala They believed that they owed their kingdom to the grace of the god. See 1.23 of No. 76. Chakravarti has shown that Vanka is a Prakrit form of Sanskrit Vakra, a name of Śiva Ep. Ind., XIX, Additions etc., p. viii.
⁶See v. 11 of No. 77.