Political History of Northern India

SR No.: 001744
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Gulabchandra Chaudhary
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar
Publication Year: 1954
Total Pages: 482
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, History, & Culture
File Size: 10 MB

Page 66

36
POLITICAL HISTORY OF N. INDIA FROM JAIN SOURCES
918 or 861 A.D., a chief Kakkuka, of Pratihära dynasty founded a Jain temple and made it over to a Jain community of Gaccha Dhaneswara.' All these references from the early seventh to the ninth century show that the Pratihāras were already settled in the N.W. Rajasthana areas.
Origin: Who were these Gurjara-Pratihāras? Regarding this question. we have no particular information. Some scholars regard them as of foreign origin and argue that the personal names of the earlier rulers found in the Jain inscription from Ghațiyālā as well as in other inscriptions of this dynasty are outlandish. This much may be said on this point that there are no outlandish names. They are Präkṛt and Apabhrañsa forms of Saňskṛt terms.
These Gurjaras were divided among certain clans and one of them was called Pratihāra. It should be kept in mind in this connection that the term 'Gurjara' primarily bears a racial signification, rather than a geographical sense. For this we have the testimony of a south Indian Jain poet Pampa, who expressly calls Mahipala 'Gurjararāja"." This epithet could hardly be applied to him, if the term Gurjararaja bore a geographical sense denoting what after all was only a small portion of Mahipala's vast territories. This fact is curiously confirmed by a Råjor inscription of Mathandeva dated V.E. 1016 or 959 A.D. wherein he is described as belonging to the Gurjara-Pratihāra lineage, since the phrase "Gurjara-Pratihārānvayaḥ" occurring in it must be interpreted to mean 'Pratihara clan of the Gurjaras'."
The two Jain inscriptions along with the other inscriptions of this dynasty, however, suggest a different kind of origin. The Ghatiyālā inscription (in Präkrt) of Kakkuka says:
"Rahutilao Padihāro asi siri Lakkhanotti Rāmassa
Tena Padihāravanso samunai attha sampatto."
'Sri Lakṣmaṇa, the ornament of Raghu dynasty, was the door-keeper (Pratihära) of Rama. Through him this dynasty of Pratihāras reached the growth.""
JRAS., 1895., pp. 513-21:
Tripathi, Dr. R. S.: History of Kanauj, p. 221.
See infra p. 62: The term may be interpreted in the light of the official statements of the family. Gurjara-Pratihāra means 'Pratihāra family from Gurjaratră.'
4 EI., III, p. 266; See also IA, XL, p. 22.
JRAS., 1895, p. 513. ff. V. 2.
Cf. Jodhpur Ins. of Pratihara Bauk, EI., XVIII, pp. 87 ff. V. 4:
यात्रा रामभद्रस्य प्रातिहार्य कृतं यतः श्रीप्रतीहार वंशोऽयमतश्चोन्नीतिमाप्नुयात् ॥