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Kavyanusasana
about six years, and after avenging himself by robbing and killing the officers of the new power, he might have established an independent kingdom at Anahilavāda.
I must, however, confess that this supposition about the connection of Vanarāja Chăvada with the Chāpas of Bhinnamála and of their defeat at Panchăsara at the hands of Pratihāras, though not improbable, is one, which requires more evidence to be accepted as an historical fact. . Whatever may be the antecedents of Vanaraja, all authorities agree on the point that he established the kingdom of Anahilavāda by founding a city on a site shown to him by one Anahilla - the son of Bhāruyada Sākhada - that is Sākhada the shepherd (P. C. p. 13).* From the play Moharājāparājaya of Yasahpala, we learn, “ Formerly the king Sri Vanarāja observing the good features of the land founded a city on it" ( Act III p. 67). In the same play Kumārapala is addressed as one enjoying the kingship earned by Sri Vanarāja (Act IV, p. 108). The story, (or as Abhayatilakagani in his commentary on the Dvyāşraya puts it 'loka-sruti', that is, the hearsay of the people) goes that as Vanarāja was looking for a place fit for the brave, he, on promising that the city would be named after the shepherd, was shown a piece of land where a powerful hound was being harassed by a fox
* According to the Vividha-tīrtha-kalpa of Jipaprabha there was formerly a town named Lakkhārāma (=Sk. Laksbárāma) on the bank of the river Sarasvatī. This town was the site on which Anahilaváda Pattana was founded. (... ...SPEITIA सरस्सई नईतडे । पुव्विं अणहिल्लवाडयपट्टणनिवेसहाणं किर तं आसि । (Do 51. V. T. K.).
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