North Indian Inscriptions

THE EARLY SILAHARAS

royal family and was probably situated in the neighbourhood of Kolhāpur. It is identified by some with Vaḷavaḍe,[1] now called Rādhānagarī, about 27 miles south-west of Kolhāpur, but this place also would be far away from the capital. Perhaps, it is identical with Vaḷivaḍē, about 6 miles to the east of Kolhāpur. That this place has no ancient remains[2] is not a weighty reason against this identification ; for such remains are not noticed in the case of all ancient places. Some grants of this branch mention the fort of Khiḷigiḷa,[3] Praṇālaka[4] or Padmanālā[5] as the place of royal residence at the time of making the grants. This is the same as the modern fort of Panhāḷā, twelve miles north-west of Kolhāpur. Dr. Altekar has suggested that Panhāḷā was the summer, Kolhāpur the winter, and Vaḷavaḍē the monsoon capital of this branch. Bilhaṇa’s Vikramāṅkadēvacharita[6] mentions Karahāṭa (modern Karhāḍ in the Sātārā District, as the capital of the Śilāhāra king where his daughter Chandralēkhā was married to the Later Chālukya king Vikramāditya VI. Fleet, therefore, thought that this was the capital of this Śilāhāra branch[7]. This is not unlikely ; but it seems that the seat of government was soon thereafter shifted to Kolhāpur

.. All the three families of the Śilāhāras trace their descent from the mythical Vidyādhara prince Jīmūtavāhana, the son of Jīmūtakētu, who offered to sacrifice himself to rescue a Nāga named Śaṅkhachūḍa from the clutches of Garuḍa[8]. The family name Śilāhāra, ‘food on a slab’, was supposed to have been derived from this incident. The Prince of Wales Museum plates of Chhadvaidēva give another tradition about the founder of the family. According to them, Śīlāra was a great warrior who saved the western ocean when it was threatend by the arrow of Jāmadagnya (Paraśurāma). His descendants thereafter came to be known by his name.[9] This story is not, however, noticed in any other early work. The name Śilāhāra (food on a slab) seems to have been due to an attempt to Sanskritise the dynastic name which is spelt variously as Silāra[10], Śīlāra[11], Śiyaḷāra[12] and Śailāhāra[13] in the records of the Śilāhāras. This was in pursuance of the tendency noticed in mediaeval times to trace the descent of royal families to eponymous heroes.

.. The Śilāhāras ruling over North Koṅkaṇ and the Southern Marāṭhā country state with pride in their grants that they were ‘lords of the city of Tagara’ (Tagarapuraparamēśvara)[14]
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[1] Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIII, p. 30.
[2] Ibid., Vol. XXVII, p. 179.
[3] No. 43, lines 31-32.
[4] No. 59, line 1.
[5] No. 60, line 31.
[6] Canto VIII, v.2.
[7] Bom. Gaz., Vol. II, part ii, p. 546.
[8] It is said that Garuḍa forced the serpent king Vāsuki to give him one of his serpent subjects for his daily food. One day it was the turn of the serpent Śaṅkhachūḍa to be sacrificed. He was to sit on a stone slab, expecting to be devoured by Garuḍa. The Vidyādhara prince Jīmūtavāhana, who saw it, was moved by compassion and resolved to take his place, when he had been away for a short while for the darśana of Śiva at Gokarṇa. In the meanwhile, Garuḍa came and took Jīmūtavāhana away. When he had half devoured him, he learnt his mistake. In response to the prayers of his wife, Pārvatī revived Jīmūtavāhana. Garuḍa then vowed not to devour serpents any longer and revived the dead ones. The story of Jīmūtavāhana occurred in the original Bṛihatkathā in the Paiśāchī dialect, which is not extant now. It occurs in two places in its Sanskrit versions, viz. the Kathāsaritsāgara of Sōmadēva (XXII, 16-257, and XC, 3-201) and the Bṛihatkathāmañjarī of Kshēmēndra (IV, 50-108, and IX, 766-930). Both the authors of these Sanskrit versions flourished in the eleventh cen. A.D.
[9] No. 4, lines 28-29.
[10] No. 9, line 5.
[11] No. 7, lines 21-22.
[12] No. 43, lines 2-3
[13] No. 45, line 2.
[14] This occurs in the records of the Śilāhāras of North Koṅkaṇ.

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