South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MINISTERS AND FEUDATORIES OF THE
VATSAGULMA BRANCH

No. 26 : PLATE XXVI
GHAṬŌTKACHA CAVE INSCRIPTION OF VARAHADEVA

... THIS inscription was first published with an English translation, but without any facsimile plate, by Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji in the Inscriptions from the Cave-Temples of Western India (Archaeological Survey of Western India) (1881), pp. 88 f¹. He gave a fairly correct transcript of the text and pointed out that Hastibhōja, mentioned in line 10, was probably a minister of the Vākāṭaka king Dēvasēna. He further identified Dēvarāja mentioned in line 13 with the homonymous minister of a king of Aśmaka, mentioned in line 10 of the inscription in Cave XVII at Ajaṇṭā, and on the basis of this identification, conjectured that the Ghaṭōtkacha cave was of a somewhat later date then the Ajaṇṭā caves XVI, XVII and XXVI². The inscription was next edited with a lithograph and an English translation by Dr. G. Bühler in the Archaeological Survey of Western India, Vol. IV (1883), pp. 138 f. and PI. LX. The lithograph was prepared from an estampage taken by Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji, and appears to have been somewhat worked up by hand. Dr. Bühler’s transcript and translation differed in some points from those of Pandit Bhagvanlal. He declared himself against the identification of Dēvarāja with the Aśmaka minister of the same name, proposed by Pandit Bhagvanlal, and apparently took Dēvarāja to be Indra, the lord of gods³. Bühler further pointed out that this ministerial family belonged to the Vallūras, which, he thought, was apparently a sub-division of the Malabār Brāhmaṇas⁴. The transcripts of Bhagvanlal and Bühler led to certain misconceptions regarding the original home of this family. I therefore published a revised edition of the record with a facsimile prepared from estampages supplied by the Archaeological Department of the Hyderabad State. It is re-edited here from the same estampages.

...The present inscription is incised on the left end of the back wall of the verandah of what is known as the Ghaṭōtkacha Cave at Gulwāḍā, 11 miles west of Ajaṇṭā. It seems to have originally consisted of twenty-two lines, but the last four lines are now almost completely defaced. Of the remaining eighteen lines, again, only the first ten can be read more or less completely, but a major portion of the next eight lines on the right-hand side is now irrecoverably lost owing to the decay of the stone on which they were engraved. The inscription is, however, the only record which gives a complete genealogy of Varāhadēva, the minister of the Vākāṭaka king Harishēṇa, and this circumstance invests it with considerable importance. I have tried to decipher it as much as is possible in its present defaced condition.
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¹ The Ghaṭōkacha cave where the inscription is incised was first brought to notice by Captain Rose and described by Surgeon W.H. Bradley, but the present inscription does not appear to have been deciphered before 1881. Dr. Burgess called it an inscription of Aśmaka princes, evidently relying on the account given by Pandit Bhagvanlal.
² Bhagvanlal gave the following genealogy of Dēvarāja. Hastibhōja, (his son) Varāhadeva, (his son) Bhavirāja, and (his son) Dēvarāja. According to him, Dēvarāja was the great-grandson of Hastibhōja and grandson of Varāhadēva. The Ajanṭā caves XVI and XVII were, however, excavated during the reign of the Vākāṭaka king Harishēṇa, whose minister was Varāhadēva. Cave XXVI was excavated by a Buddhist Bhikshu in honour of Bhavirāja, a minister of the king of Aśmaka.
³ As shown below, Dēvarāja in line 13 in none other than the Vākāṭaka king Dēvasēna. ⁴ This view rests on the reading Malayē in line 7, which, as shown below, is extremely doubtful. See below, p. 116, n. 8.