South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI OF TRIPURI

have signified Karna’s suzerainty over the Gurjara-Pratīhāras of Kanauj, the Gangas of Kalinga and the Pālas of Bengal. The Gurjara-Pratīhāras maintained a fine cavalry and are sometimes referred to in inscriptions as Aśvapati or Hayapati.¹ Kalinga was known for its breed of elephants.² Its rulers are occasionally referred to as Gajādhīśas or Lords of Elephants.³ The king of the east received, according to Yuan Chwang, the title of the lord of men.⁴ As we have already seen, Karna had vanquished all these kings and in his case the title was significant; but in the case of his descendants and of some kings of the other dynasties who imitated him, it was clearly an empty boast.

According to the Rāsamālā, one hundred and thirty-six kings were in attendance upon Karna.⁵ The Bhērā-Ghāt inscription of Narasimha states that the Pāndya and Hūna kings and the rulers of Murala, Kunga, Vanga, Kalinga and Kīra were panic-stricken when Karna gave a full play to his valour.⁶ The Karanbēl stone inscription says that Chōda, Kunga, Hūna, Gauda, Gurjara and Kīra used to wait upon him.⁷ It may be that the names of some of these kings have been inserted in the verses by the writers of the praśastis for the sake of alliteration; but the foregoing account of Karna’s conquests based on incontrovertible inscriptional and literary evidence testifies to the general correctness of the description. In the records of his enemies, Karna’s whirl-wind campaigns are likened to the flooding waters of the oceans at the time of world-destruction. On account of the aggressive and ruthless policy which he pursued towards contemporary rulers, he is called Rudra and Kālāgni (Fire of world-destruction) in the Sanskrit play Prabōdhachandrōdaya. These similes and metaphors vividly portray the terror he struck in the hearts of his adversaries.
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Great as Karna was in war, he was greater in peace. He gave a liberal patronage to religion and literature. At Banaras he built a high twelve-storeyed temple called Karnamēru, which was probably dedicated to Śiva;⁸ for, he was himself a Śaiva and called himself paramamāhēśvara in his grants. He built a ghāt called Karna-tīrtha at Prayāga where his Goharwa grant was made. He established a settlement of learned Brāhmanas, which he named Karnāvatī after himself. This place is generally identified with Karanbēl, now a small village adjoining Tewar; but from the description in the grants of Yaśahkarna that it was, as it were, the crown of the heavenly river (Gangā), it would appear that it was situated somewhere on the bank of the Gangā. Though Karna thus extended his patronage to the Vedic and Puranic Hinduism, he was no sectarian. There was religious toleration in his kingdom. The Sārnāth stone inscription⁹ dated K. 810 shows that Buddhist monasteries continued to flourish during his reign.

Karna made the holy city of Banaras his capital. It was at Banaras that the Sanskrit poet Bilhana met him.¹⁰ Learned Brāhmanas received liberal gifts at his hands. A verse which is repeated in both of his known grants states that the world was deafened by the engraving of copper-plates which he granted to Brāhmanas.¹¹ Even now stories about
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¹ See above, p. lxxiv, n. 2.
² KAS., Prakarana 20.
³ See, e.g., No. 100, v. 8.
⁴ B. R. W. W., Vol. I, p. 13.
⁵ RM., Vol. I, p. 89. See also PCH., p. 50.
⁶ No. 60, v. 12.
⁷ Appendix, No. 3, v. 21.
⁸ Nos. 56 and 57, v. 13.
⁹ No. 52.
¹⁰ VDCH., Canto XVIII, v. 93.
¹¹ No. 50 v. 30 and No. 51, v. 32. The same verse with a slight change in one expression and the substitution of Chandra for Karna occurs in the Chandrāvatī plates (V. 1150) of the Gāhadavāla Chandradēva. Ep. Ind. Vol. XIV, p. 195.