South Indian Inscriptions

MISCELLANEOUS

SPURIOUS MANKANI PLATES OF TARALASVAMIN : (KALACHURI) YEAR 346

The plates purport to record the grant, by Taralasvāmin of the Katachchuri (Early Kalachuri) family, of a rice-field situated on the northern boundary of the village Mańkaņikā. Taralasvāmin is described as the son of Mahārāja Naņņa and Dadā and the sister’s husband of the illustrious Sūrya. The grant was made for the maintenance of the five great sacrifices. The donee was the Brāhmaņa Jyēshthasēna, who belonged to the Jātūkarņa gōtra¹ and the Vājasanēya śākhā. The record was written by the Sāndhivigrahika Āditya who was a Bhōgika. It is dated in the year 346, expressed both in words and in decimal figures. This is supposed to be the earliest epigraphic instance of the use of the decimal notation.²

The Palæography of the grant makes it probable that it belongs to about the seventh century A.C. Its date has been referred to the Kalachuri era. According to the epoch of 248-49 A.C., it would correspond to 594-95 A.C. if the year 346 was current, and to 595-96 A.C. if it was expired. As no further details are given, the date does not admit of calculation.

Taralasvāmin, who made the present grant, bears no royal title, though his father Naņņa is called Mahārāja. He may have owed allegiance to the Kalachuri king Sańkaragaņa whose Ābhōņa plates were issued just a year after the date of the present grant.³ That Gujarat was included in the dominion of Sańkaragaņa is clear from the Sańkhēdā plate of Śāntilla, which mentions him as the reigning king.⁴ Like Śāntilla, Taralasvāmin also seems to have been holding a subordinate position; for like the former, he addresses his order to a king’s officers (rāja-pādīyas) as well as to his own. This king may have been Sankaragana.

There are certain indications, however, which raise suspicion about the genuineness of this grant. Neither Taralasvamin nor his father Nanna is known from any records of the Early Kalachuris. Even supposing that they were collaterals and need not, therefore, have been mentioned in those records, it looks strange that unlike Santilla, Taralasvamin does not name his suzerain who, as we have seen, was Sankaragana. He and his father Nanna are praised in extravagant terms which would have been more appropriate in the case of an independent king like Sankaragana. Besides, we find that in this period Santilla also was holding this very part of Gujarat; for the village Tandu- lapadraka granted by him is identified with Tandalja, about I6 miles from Sankheda. It is, of course, possible to reconcile the two grants by supposing that Taralasvamin either preceded or followed Santilla in the governorship of Gujarat, but in any case Taralasvamin’s silence about his suzerain remains inexplicable.

The decimal notation also, used in recording the date, causes suspicion about the genuineness of the grant; for not only in the period to which the record refers itself, viz., the end of the sixth century A.C., but for more than 150 years afterwards the prevailing custom in Gujarat as in other parts of India was to record dates in numerical symbols. The inscriptions of the Early Kalachuris, Gurjaras, Sendrakas and Chalukyas,⁵ who held Gujarat from the sixth to the eighth century A.C., are invariably dated in this manner. Even
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¹ The mention of this gotra is interesting, for it shows that the name Jatukarni of the mother of the famous Sanskrit dramatist Bhavabhuti was derived from it. See also Ep. Ind., Vol. XXII, p. 108.
² I. P., p. 83. See also Dr. Sukhtankar’s article ‘Palaeographic Notes’ in R. G. Bhandarkar Commemoration Volume, pp. 319 f.
³ They are dated in K. 347.
⁴ In his grant Śāntilla not only describes his suzerain Śańkaragaņa, but also the latter’s father Krishņarāja
⁵ See the dates of Nos.12-30 above.