South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI OF TRIPURI

Yuvarājadēva I was succeeded by Lakshmanarāja II, who was his son by his favourite wife Nōhalā. In the early part of his reign, Lakshmanarāja seems to have taken part in the northern campaign of the Rāshtrakūta king Krishna III. A Kanarese inscription¹ recently discovered at Jurā, 12 miles from the Maihar railway station, shows that Krishna III led an expedition in the north after he ascended the throne, and set up a monument in the Chēdi country. It is not dated; but as it mentions Krishna’s extermination of the Chōla king, it must have been put up after 947 A.C.² It has been suggested that the erection of this monument implies defeat of the Chēdi king; but since there is no mention or even suggestion of it in the Jurā inscription, it seems that Krishna III set up the monument as he marched through the Chēdi kingdom. His relations with Lakshmanarāja II seem to have been as cordial as those of his father with Yuvarājadēva I.

Like his father, Lakshmanarāja also raided distant countries. The Kārītalāi inscription³ of his reign, which must have contained an account of his conquests, has unfortunately lost its initial historical portion; but in the records of his successors, he is described as one ‘who was clever in routing the king of Bengal, who defeated Pāndya, who was an adept in despoiling the king of Lāta, who vanquished the Gurjara king and whose foot-stool was honoured by the heroes of Kāśmīra.’ There is no corroboration of Lakshmanarāja’s raid in Bengal and Kashmir; but the Bilhāri inscription⁴ states that he defeated the lord of Kōsala (i.e., South Kosala or Chhattisgarh) and pressed on as far as Orissa. He vanquished the ruler of this latter country also, and obtained from him an effigy of the (Nāga) Kāliyā, wrought with jewels and gold. As regards his victory in Lāta or Gujarat, we have the statement in the same inscription that Lakshmanarāja, in the course of his expedition in the west, worshipped the god Sōmēśvara, evidently identical with Sōmanātha near Verāval in Saurashtra and dedicated to the deity the aforementioned effigy of Kāliyā. His invasion of the Pāndya country also seems to be corroborated by a mutilated line⁵ in the contemporary Kārītalāi inscription which mentions his forces encamped on the bank of the Tāmraparnī. It seems rather strange that there should be no reference to Lakshmanrāja’s victory over the Chōlas, who, and not the Pāndyas, were supreme in the south in the latter half of the tenth century A.C., and who must have been attacked and defeated by Lakshmanarāja before he could press as far south as Tāmraparnī in the Pāndya country. We have, therefore, to suppose that the Chōlas had not recovered from the attack of the Rāshtrakūta prince Krishna III and that the Pāndya king was raising his head and trying to reestablish his power with the help of the Rāshtrakūtas,⁶ when his country was raided by Lakshmanarāja. Perhaps the object of the panegyrist was not to enumerate all kings defeated by Lakshmanarāja, and the Pāndya king finds a mention because he was ruling in the extreme south.

The Gurjara king defeated by Lakshmanarāja must have been one of the weak successors of Mahīpāla, as pointed out by R. D. Banerji.⁷ The same scholar found corroboration of this victory in the statement of the Bilhāri inscription that Lakshmanarāja defeated the lord Kōsala. He further identified this prince with his namesake mentioned at the head of the genealogy in the Kahla plates of Sōdhadēva, and conjectured that he must
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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XIX, pp. 287 ff.
² Mr. N. Lakshminarayan Rao ascribes it to 963-64 A.C.
³ No. 42.
⁴ No. 45, 11. 23-24.
⁵ No. 42, line 1.
⁶ Compare Kritvā dakshina-dig-jay-ōdyata-dhiyā Chaul-ānvay-ōnmūlanam tad-bhūmim nija-bhritya-vargga- paritaś=Chēranma-Pāndy-ādikān in the Karhad plates of Krishna III; Ep. Ind., Vol. IV, p. 285.
^{7 H. T. M., p.13.}