North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

KHAROD STONE INSCRIPTION OF RATNADEVA III : YEAR 933

inscription of K. 915^¹ also, but there the details are lost owing to the flaking away of the surface of the stone.

The present inscription carries the royal genealogy two reigns further than the preceding Amōdā plates of Jājalladēva II. We learn from verse 12 that after the death of Jājalladēva II, the kingdom was plunged into anarchy.^² Then his elder brother Jagaddēva hastened from the eastern country and became king. This description shows that Jājalladēva II died suddenly while his brother was fighting in the east. The latter was, therefore, forced to return to his country to quell the disturbances consequent on the ruler's death. It seems plausible, as conjectured by Dr. Chakravarti, that Jājalladēva II who was a younger son of Pṛithvīdēva II, was carrying on the government in the absence of his elder brother who was for a long time engaged in fighting the Eastern Gaṅgas. He does not seem to be a usurper; otherwise he would not have received the praise in verse 11 of the present record which belongs to his nephew's reign. Ratnadēva III was the son of this Jagaddēva by his wife Sōmalladēvī. That Ratnapura continued to be the royal capital is clear from verse 19.

The second part of the present inscription, which begins in verse 20, gives at the outset the pedigree of Gaṅgādhara, the chief minister of Ratandēva III. His grandfather was Dēvadhara, a Brāhmaṇa of the Kāśyapa gōtra. The latter's son was Rājadēva who married Jīvā. Their son was Gaṅgādhara. Verse 25 tells us that when the kingdom of Ratnadēva (III) was reduced to great straits, the treasury being empty, the elephant-force weakened and the country in the grip of a famine, it was Gaṅgādhara who by his policy restored the peace and prosperity of the country. Being pleased with his learning, character and diplomacy, Ratnadēva made him his chief minister, and overcoming all his foes by his policy, ruled his kingdom peacefully. We are next told that Gaṅgādhara had two wives Rālhā and Padmā, of whom the former gave birth to two sons Sūprada and Jījāka and the latter to Khaḍgasiṁha.

Verse 30 begins an enumeration of Gaṅgādhara's benefactions. He reconstructed the maṇḍapa of the temple of Śiva, to which the stone bearing the present inscription is affixed.^³ To the south of the temple he erected a maṭha with well-seasoned wood for the residence of ascetics. He also built, evidently at Kharōd, a spacious and beautiful maṇḍapa of Śauri (Vishṇu). At Ratnapura he erected the maṇḍapa of Ēkavīrā, which resembled a Pushpaka, on the top of a hill in the west.^⁴ He built another maṇḍapa in honour of Purārāti (i. e., of Śiva) and temples of Hara and Hēramba at Vaḍada in the forest-tract. He constructed a temple of Durgā at Durga, another of the sun at the town Pahapaka and a lofty shrine of Śambhu at Pōratha. To the north of Ratnapura he built a maṇḍapa for Ṭūnṭā-Gaṇapati, and had tanks and lotus-ponds excavated at the
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¹ Above, No. 96.
² This event is evidently different from the calamity mentioned in verse 19 of the Amōdā plates of Jājalladēva II (above No. 99); for, the latter took place during the reign of Jājalladēva II.
³ The temple was originally built by a king, probably Īśānadēva, of the Sōmavaṁśī dynasty. His stone inscription which was fixed into the right-hand wall of the same maṇḍapa was plastered over and is now much mutilated. From the extant portion it appears that the object of it was to record the construction of a temple of Śiva under the name of Lakshmaṇadēva and the endowment of it with some villages including Sōṭṭhapadraka and Mēkalapāṭaka. The inscription has not yet been edited, but I have shown elsewhere that Īśānadēva was the uncle of Tivaradēva and probably flourished about 540 A. .C. See Ep. Ind., Vol. XXII, pp. 18 ff. and Vol. XXVI, p. 222.
⁴ This temple is still standing on the hill to the west of Ratanpur. It is now said to be dedicated to Lakshmī. There is a large and much abraded stone inscription in Prakrit, affixed to a wall of this temple. It has not yet been deciphered.