South Indian Inscriptions

THE MAIN BRANCH

gupta II, and thus placed Vākāṭaka genealogy on a sound basis. Unlike other charters of the Vākāṭakas, this grant is inscribed in nail-headed characters and in its initial portion gives the genealogy of the Guptas and not of the Vākāṭakas. This clearly indicates that Gupta influence was predominant at the Vākāṭaka court during the regency of Prabhavātī. guptā.¹ Chandragupta II had evidently sent some of his trusted officers and statesmen to assist his daughter in governing her kingdom. One of these was the famous Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa, who seems to have stayed at the Vākāṭaka court for some time. He composed his world-famous lyric Mēghadūta probably during his sojourn in Vidarbha; for, he describes therein Rāmagiri² as the place of the exiled Yaksha’s residence. This place, as already stated, is undoubtedly identical with Rāmṭēk near Nagpur. His graphic description of the six-year old Sudarśana in the 18thth canto of the Raghuvaṁśa was probably suggested by what he saw of the boy prince Divākarasēna at the Vākāṭaka capital.

...Divākarasēna also seems to have been short-lived. He was succeeded in circa 420 A.C. by his brother Dāmodarasena, who, on his accession, assumed the name Pravarasena of his illustrious ancestor. Several grants of this prince have come down to us. They record his donations of fields or villages in the modern districts of Amarāvatī, Wardhā, Nāgpur, Bētul, Chhindwāḍā, Bhānḍārā and Bālāghāṭ in Vidarbha and Madhya Pradēsh. The latest of these grants is dated in the 29thth regnal year. Pravarasēna II had therefore a long reign of about thirty years from circa 420 A.C. to 450 A.C.

...Pravarasēna II continued to reign from the old capital Nandivardhana till his 11thth regnal year; for, his Bēlōrā plates³ dated in that year were issued from that city. Thereafter, he founded a new city which he named Pravarapura after himself and shifted his seat of government there. The earliest grant made at Pravarapura is dated in the 18thth regnal year⁴, which shows that this change of the capital must have occurred some time between the 11thth and 18thth regnal years. Pravarapura is probably identical with Pavnār near Wardhā in the Wardhā District of Vidarbha.

...Pravarasēna II was a devotee of Śambhu, by whose grace he is said to have established on earth the reign of the Kṛita-yuga or Golden Age. He was a very liberal king ; for more than a dozen grants of his reign have been discovered so far. Having come into contact with such a great poet as Kālidāsa, he naturally acquired a taste for poetic composition. Some of his Sanskrit verses are preserved in Sanskrit anthologies. Several Prakrit gāthās composed by him have been included in the Gāthāsaptaśatī, Though himself a Śaiva, he composed the Prakrit kāvya Sētubandha in glorification of Rāma, probably at the instance of his mother Prabhāvatīguptā.⁵ He began to compose this Kāvya soon after he came to the throne⁶ and evidently received considerable help in its composition from his friend Kālidāsa.⁷ This kāvya has been highly eulogised by Sanskrit poets and rhetoricians.
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¹ Prabhāratiguptā repeated the same genealogy in her later Ṛiddhapur grant also. She was evidently more proud of her Gupta descent than of her marriage in the Vākāṭaka family.
² For the location of Rāmagiri, see my article in N. U.J., No. IX, pp. 9 f. Also S.I., Vol. I, pp. 12f.
³ No. 5, line 29.
⁴ No. 6, line 60.
⁵ Pravarasēna II’s authorship of the Sētubandha is doubted on the ground that ‘while the theme of the kāvya is Vaishṇava, the king was a devotee of Śiva’. H.C.I.P., Vol. III, p. 84. The argument has little force. We might as well doubt Kālidāsa’s authorship of the Raghuvaṁśa on the ground that he was a Śaiva.
⁶ Cf. Sētubandha, canto I, v. 9.
⁷ According to Rāmadāsa, a commentator of the Setubandha, the kāvya was composed by Kālīdāsa for the sake of Pravarasēna by the order of Mahārājādhirāja Vikramāditya. It is not, however, likely that Kālidāsa actually composed the kāvya, though he may have revised it.