South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI OF TRIPURI

minister of Kīrtivarman, wrested the surrounding district from the enemy and built the fort which he named Kīrtigiri, evidently in honour of his lord Kīrtivarman. The unnamed enemy is probably Karna himself. Karna’s defeat must, however, have occurred long before the date of this inscription. Vincent Smith approximately dates the accession of Kīrtivarman in 1060 A.C.1 If this date is correct, Karna must have been in occupation of the Chandēlla kingdom for seven or eight years.

Towards the close of his reign, Karna made another attempt to wipe out the neighbouring state of Malwa. The political situation in the Deccan had considerably changed in the meanwhile. Āhavamalla was dead and was succeeded by his eldest son Sōmēśvara II. The latter was afraid of his ambitious younger brother, Vikramāditya VI, and, therefore, must have readily allied himself with the powerful Kalachuri Emperor and helped him in his invasion of Malwa. This time the allied arms attained a greater success. The Nagpur Museum stone inscription very graphically describes in verse 32 the terrible disaster that befell the Mālava country at the time. It says that when Bhōja had become Indra’s companion and when the realm was overrun by floods in which the sovereign was submerged, his brother Udayāditya became king. Delivering the earth which was troubled by kings such as the lord of Karnāta and Karna, who swept over it like great oceans, this (prince) did indeed act like the holy Boar.2 The expression rājyē cha kuly-ākulē in this verse is significant. Besides the meaning given above, it signifies another, viz., that the kingdom was in a state of disturbance owing to the rising of the scions of the (Paramāra) family. Even though Jayasimha had ascended the throne with the help of the Chālukya king Āhavamalla, its seems that there were some members of the Paramāra family (kulyas) who did not acquiesce in it. It is not known how Jayasimha was related to Bhōja. In his records he, no doubt, describes himself as meditating on the feet of Bhōja, but this does not necessarily indicate that he was his son. Perhaps he was his brother as conjectured by Dr. Altekar.3 In that case there may have been other members of the Paramāra family who thought that they had an equal or even a better claim to the throne. So long as Jayasimha had the support of the powerful Chālukya Emperor, Sōmēśvara I-Āhavamalla, they could not do anything; but on the death of the Emperor, they must have risen in revolt. Perhaps these risings were fomented by the ambitious Kalachuri Emperor Karna, who had so far been foiled in his attempt to annex Malwa permanently. When he found that the Malwa kingdom was torn by a civil war, he made his alliance with Sōmēśvara II, the son of Āhavamalla, and invaded Malwa. The wording of the aforementioned verse of the Nagpur Museum inscription shows that the invaders were more than two. This is corroborated by a stone inscription of the Paramāra prince Jagaddēva, recently discovered at Dōngargaon in the Yeotmal District of Berar, which states that Malwa was invaded by a confederacy of three kings.4 Two of these were, of course, the Kalachuri ______________________

¹ Ind. Ant. Vol. XXXVII, p. 149.
² Ep. Ind., Vol. II, p. 185. Kielhorn read the second hemistich of this verse (32) as C. V. Vaidya ingeniously conjectured that the correct reading should be and 1 find from the original stone deposited in the Nagpur Museum that this is the actual reading. This reading suits the metre and yields a better sense. It shows that Malwa was invaded at that time by a confederacy of more than two kings. This is corroborated by the Dōngaraon inscription of Jagaddēva (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVI, p. 183), as stated above.
³ Ibid., Vol. XXIII, pp. 132 ff.