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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
THE EARLY SILAHARAS
..After the overthrow of the Chālukyas, some adventurous princes seem to have migrated to the west and the south to carve out small kingdoms under the patronage of the Rāshṭrakūṭas. Saṇaphulla, the founder of the Śilāhāra branch of South Koṅkaṇ, obtained his principality by the favour of Kṛishṇa,[1] who is plainly the first Rāshṭrakūṭa king of that name who flourished from c. A.D. 758 to A.D. 773. Kapardin, the founder of the North Koṅkaṇ branch, rose to power a little later during the reign of the Rāshṭrakūṭa Emperor Gōvinda III (A.D. 793-814).[2] We do not know what became of the kingdom of Tagara thereafter. It was probably incorporated in the Rāshṭrakūṭa dominion. .. The Kolhāpur branch rose to power much later. The founder of it is described as “ the lord of the Gōmantha fort’ and as the maternal uncle of the Gaṅga chief Pērmānaḍi.[3] Gōmantha is the mountain of that name in the Shimōgā District of the Mysore State. It seems that the Śilāhāras of the Kolhāpur branch, though originally hailing from Tagara, were settled for some time in South Karnāṭaka, before they could establish themselves in the Kolhāpur region with the support of the successors of the Gaṅga Chief Pērmanaḍi alias Mārasiṁha.
.. The Śilāhāras were Kannaḍa-speaking. Tagara from which all branches of the Silāhāras migrated lay then in the Kannaḍa-speaking region, though its modern representative Ter is now included in the Marāṭhī-speaking Mahārāshṭra. That these branches had kannada as their mother tongue is shown not only by the names of their ministers and officers which end in aiya[4] but also by their Kannaḍa birudas which occur in their inscriptions. See e.g. Malagalagaṇḍa, Gaṇḍaragaṇḍa, Gaṇḍavaṅgara , Nannisamudra, Villavēḍaṅga, Maruvakkasarpa, Iḍuvarāditya, Ayyanasiṅga etc.[5] These Kannaḍa birudas continue in the records of the Śilāhāras of North Koṅkaṇ till the end of Arikēsarin’s reign in c. A.D. 1020.[6] The language of the people in North Koṅkaṇ was Marāṭhī. Though the first known Marāṭhī inscription (viz. the Dive Āgar plate)[7] is dated as early as Śaka 982 (A.D. 1060), Marāṭhī words appear first in the Śilāhāra stone inscription found at Rānjalī, dated Śaka 1070 (A.D. 1148).[8] Thereafter, though the general framework of the inscriptions continues to be in Sanskrit, Marāṭhī sentences occasionally make their appearance.[9] The Marāṭhī language does not appear fully developed in any Śilāhāra record. In the Kolhāpur region, on the other hand, Kannaḍa was the language of the people. It is noticed not only in the birudas of the rulers but also in small and stone inscriptions[10] which are composed in Kannaḍa from beginning to end. .. The language of the Śilāhāras of South Koṅkaṇ also must have been Kannaḍa, but as very few grants of the family have been discovered, and they are wholly written in Sanskrit, we do not come across any Kannaḍa birudas or expressions in them, though stray Kannaḍa words like haḍapa[11] are noticed therein. ..
As North Koṅkaṇ was ruled by Kannaḍa-speaking princes such as the Sēndrakas[12] and
the Chālukyas[13] since its annexation to the dominion of the Early Chālukyas in the beginning
[1] No. 41, line 24.
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