South Indian Inscriptions

THE VATSAGULMA BRANCH

with the king of Kuntala and caused disaffection among other feudatories also. They treacherously attacked their suzerain in the rear, while he was fighting with the invading forces of the king of Vanavāsī. The emperor was killed in the battle. The cunning Aśmaka king then contrived to cause dissenssions among the feudatories also. They fought among themselves for the spoils of the war and destroyed one another. He then appropriated the whole booty and, giving some part of it to the invader, induced him to return to Vanavāsī, and himself annexed the kingdom of Vidarbha. In the meanwhile the old faithful minister of Vidarbha safely escorted the queen of Vidarbha with her two small children-a prince and a princess-to Māhishmatī, where the late emperor’s halfbrother was reigning. The latter made advances to the widowed queen, but was repulsed by her. He then wanted to kill the little prince of Vidarbha, but was himself murdered by Viśruta, who espoused the latter’s cause and placed him on the throne of Māhishmatī.

...The narrative ends abruptly here. So we do not know whether the boy-prince ultimately succeeded in ousting the ruler of Aśmaka from Vidarbha and regaining his ancestral throne,

...The narrative seems to reflect faithfully the actual political conditions in Vidarbha in the period which followed the death of Harishēṇa in circa 500 A.C. In later centuries the centre of imperial power in the Deccan shifted successively to Māhishmatī, Bādāmī, Mānyakhēṭa and Kalyāṇa, but it was never in Vidarbha. Some of the geographical names also went out of use in later times. One such instance is that of Ṛishīka. This country is mentioned in the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa and Bṛihatsaṁhitā and in the Nāsik cave inscription of Puḷumāvi, but it is unknown to later works and inscriptions.¹ All these indications point to the sixth century A.C. as the age in which the incidents described in the Viśrutacharita happened. Daṇḍin, whose ancestors originally belonged to Vidarbha, had evidently reliable sources of information,² as he gives details about the kingdoms flourishing in the period which are substantiated in all material points by contemporary inscriptional evidence. His narrative clearly shows that the great Vākāṭaka empire which once extended from beyond the Narmadā in the north to the Tuṅgabhadrā in the south suddenly crumbled to pieces owing to the incompetence of Harisheṇa’s successor and the treacherous defection of his feudatories. As Daṇḍin’s narrative ends abruptly, we do not know whether Harishēṇa’s grandson regained the throne of Vidarbha with external aid. He may have succeeded in doing so with the assistance of the Vishṇukuṇḍin Mādhavavarman I, the mightiest king of the age, who was ruling over Andhra and who is credited with the performance of eleven Aśvamēdhas. The latter had married a Vākāṭaka princess who was probably Harisheṇa’s own daughter. But the Vākāṭaka prince could not evidently have retained his hold over Vidarbha for a long time; for, as we have already seen, the Kalachuri Kṛishṇarāja, who in the meanwhile had established himself at Māhishmatī, extended his sway over Vidarbha as well as over Northern Mahārāshṭra by 550 A.C. The Somavaṁsīs, Gaṅgas and Vishṇukuṇḍins asserted their independence in the east, while the Rāshṭrakūṭas must have gradually gained strength in the south. Thus disappeared the last vestiges of Vākāṭaka power after a glorious rule of nearly 300 years.
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¹ See A.B.O.R.I., VOL. XXV, pp. 167 f.
² According to the Avantisundarikathā and the Avantisundrīkathāsāra, Daṇḍin was the great-grandson of the Sanskrit poet Dāmōdara who originally hailed from Achalapura and was later patronised by the Gaṅga king Durvinīta and the Pallava king Siṁhavishṇu. Dāmōdara must therefore have lived in the last quarter of the sixth century. A.C. His great-grandson Daṇḍin can consequently be referred to the third quarter of the seventh century A.C. Daṇḍin thus appears to have flourished about a hundred and twenty-five years after the fall of the Vākāṭakas. It is therefore not unlikely that he had fairly reliable information about the closing period of the Vākāṭaka age.