South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI OF TRIPURI

there is, of course, no chronological difficulty in this identification; but in view of Tailapa’s close relationship with the Kalachuri king, his invasion of the Chēdi country appears improbable. As a matter of fact, the aforementioned verse describes the exploits, not of Tailapa II, but of a king named Utpala, whom he subjugated and threw into prison.¹ Dr. Fleet identified this Utpala who defeated a Chedi king with Pāñchāla, a western Ganga prince, whom, according to some other inscriptions, Tailapa killed in battle.² From the Navasāhasānkacharita,³ however, we learn that Utpala was a name of the Paramāra king Vākpati-Muñja. So this defeat of the Chēdi king by Utpala is not different from that mentioned in the Udaipur praśasti, to which we have already referred.

As Yuvarājadēva II’s grandson Gāngēyadēva closed his reign in 1041 A.C., we have to accommodate two reigns, viz., those of Yuvarājadēva II and Kōkalla II in the period 980-1015 A.C. Of these, Yuvarājadēva II had probably a shorter reign of about 10 years (circa 980-990 A. C.); for, his son Kōkalla II was very young when he came to the throne. The Jabalpur and Khairhā plates state that Kōkalla was placed on the throne by the chief ministers of Yuvarājadēva. This seems to suggest that he was a minor, when he began to rule. He may, therefore, have flourished from circa 990 to 1015 A.C. The only record of Kōkalla II’s reign is the Gurgi stone inscription, ⁴ which is besides very much mutilated just where a praśasti of the Chēdi kings begins. Verse 34 of this inscription, which refers to the exploits of Kōkalla II, is somewhat better preserved. It intimates that the Gurjara king and the rulers of Gauda and Kuntala, being panic-stricken, evidently when they heard of Kōkalla’s advance,5 deserted their kingdoms. The Gurjara king, who is said to have sought shelter in the Himālayas, must have been a ruler of the Pratīhāra dynasty of Kanauj, probably Rājyapāla. The Gauda king was probably Mahīpāla I (circa 992-1040 A.C.). The king of Kuntala, who was forced to leave his kingdom,⁶ was perhapsVikramāditya V of the Later Chālukya Dynasty. The Jabalpur and Khairhā plates of Yaśahkarna describe that the progress of Kōkalla’s four-membered army was checked only by their encountering the masses of waves of the four oceans. The vagueness of this description, however, makes it difficult to say if Kōkalla actually made successful incursions into the territories of the aforementioned kings. That the Kalachuris had lost their place among the leading political powers of North India, during the reigns of Yuvarāja II and Kōkalla II, is also clear from the absence of any reference to them in the list of the prominent Hindu states which opposed Sabuktigin and Mahmud or Ghazni towards the close of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century A.C. When in about 989 A.C. Jayapāla resolved to make a supreme effort to save India from the aggressions of Sabuktigin, he summoned to his aid the rulers of Delhi, Ajmer, Kālañjar and Kanauj.⁷ Again in 1008 A.C. when Jayapāla’s son, Ānandapāla, thought of invoking the aid of his Hindu compatriots to stem the tide of Mahmud’s invasion, he sent emissaries to the Rājās of Ujjain, Gwalior, Kālañjar, Delhi and Ajmer. In neither ________________

¹ See my article ‘Did Tailapa defeat a Chēdi king ?’ Ind. Hist. Quart., Vol. IX, pp. 132 ff.
² Ind. Ant., Vol. XVI, p. 18, no. 12.
³ Canto XI, v. 92.
⁴ No. 46.
⁵ Banerji thought that verse 34 of this inscription described the conquests of Gāngēyadēva; but this is incorrect; for, as has been pointed out by N. P. Chakravarti (Ep. Ind., XXII, 129), the preceding verse (33) names Kōkalla (II). This leaves no room for doubt that the achievements glorified in verse 34 belong to him and not to Gāngēyadēva.
⁶ There is no reference to the ruler of Banavāsī, as wrongly supposed by Banerji.
⁷ Tārīkh-i-Firishta, Translation by Briggs, p. 18.