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VAKATAKA CHRONOLOGY
VĀKĀṬAKA CHRONOLOGY-APPENDIX
...The foundation on which Dr. Majumdar’s theory is based is thus extremely shaky.
I shall now proceed to examine the subsidiary evidence adduced by him.
..(i) To account for Prabhāvatīguptā’s age of more than a hundred years in the
nineteenth regnal year of Pravarasēna, II, Dr. Majumdar supposes that the Vākāṭaka queen
had three sons, Divākarasēna, Dāmodarasēna and Pravarasēna. According to him, she
was born about 365 A.C. and became a widow in 420 A.C., i.e. when she was in the advanced
age of 55 years. Her eldest son was then about six years old. If this is correct, we shall
have to suppose that Prabhāvatī had no male children till she was nearly fifty years old, or
that all her sons born before had died, and that after that age she had these three sons
in close succession. This appears very unlikely. As Dr. Majumdar has himself said, ‘in
all cases where nothing definite is known, we shall proceed on the basis of a reasonable
and probable state of things’. No grants made by Dāmodarasēna have been discovered.
varasēna II.The expression Vākāṭakānāṁ Mahārāja-Dāmodarasēna-Pravarasēna-jananī occurs
in the description of Prabhavatigupta. It uses the Phrase Vākātakānām Mahārāja in connection with the name of Dāmodarasēna, but not with that of Pravarasēna II. When we
remember how particular the drafters of Vākāṭaka grants were about the use of this title in
connection with the name of every Vākāṭaka king who actually reigned, it looks strange
that the title should not have been prefixed to the name of Pravarsena II, who was actually
ruling at the time. Again, there is no reason why the name of Divakārasēna should have
been omitted. It semmes probable therefore that Dānodarsena and Pravarasena II were
identical, and that the latter name was adopted by the prince at the time of his accession.
From the Jāmb plates dated in the second regnal year of Pravarasēna II it seems clear that
this prince had come of age when he began to reign. Prabhāvatīguptā’s regency does
not seem to have continued long after the issue of the Poonā plates dated in the thirteenth
year evidently of the boy-prince Divākarasēna’s reign. It does not therefore seem likely that
Prabhāvatīguptā was a hundred years old in the nineteenth regnal year of Pravarasēna
II.
..(ii) Dr. Majumdar says that Narēndrasēna of the main branch and Harishēṇa of
the Vastagulma branch were contemporaries, because both of them were sixth in descent1
from their common ancestor Pravarasēna. I. We cannot, however, be certain about the
contemporaneity of princes by counting generations; for, the reign-periods of kings vary
of his ancestors, viz., Gautamīputra did not reign. Narēndrasēna was therefore probably
a contemporary of Dēvasēna. Consequently, Pṛithivīshēṇa II and Harishēṇa may have
ruled in the same period. As the latter claims to have conquered Avanti or Mālwā, he
must have overrun the territory of the main branch. He had probably annexed it after
the death of Pṛithivīshēṇa II.
....(iii) As for the restoration of the fortune of his family by Pṛithivīshēṇa II, that need
not refer to any struggle with Harishēṇa. We know that there were wars between the
main branch of the Vākāṭakas and the Nalas of Pushkarī. Bhavadatta of the Nala dynasty
had overrun the Vākāṭaka territory and occupied Nandivardhana, the enemy some time
before the reign of Skandavarman, the son of Bhavadattavarman, who resettled it. It
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1 Really speaking, it was Pṛithivshēṇa II who was a contemporary of Harisheṇa. See the Genealogical Table on p. vi.
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