Epigraphia Indica Vol 03

SR No.: 032557
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 472
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 209

164
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. III.
nature of the record, and a late origin for it. It is not possible that this record can have been framed at any earlier period than that which is established for all the others.
We may turn next to some details which present serious chronological difficulties. The Nagamangala grant, purporting to have been issued in A.D. 776-77, belongs to the twelfth generation, inclusive of the supposed founder of the family. Whereas the Merkara grant, purporting to have been issued in a year the equivalent of which is supposed to be, and in fact mast be,- A.D. 466, belongs to the sixth generation. Thus we have three hundred and ten years occupied by only six generations; with the excessive average of more than fifty years apiece,-just double what is usually accepted as the average for purposes of Hindu chronology. And a still more unreasonable average is deduced from the Tanjore grant; for, purporting to belong to the third generation and to be dated in A.D. 248, it gives, up to the Merkara grant, an interval of two hundred and eighteen years, filled by only three generations, with an average of more than seventy years each. Further, the Tanjore, Merkara, Hosûr, and Någamangala grants represent themselves as having been written, at intervals of two hundred and eighteen and two hundred and ninety-six to three hundred and ten years, by one and the same person, Visvakarman, a name suspicions enough in itself. And, in some respects at least, the witnesses to both the Tanjore and the Merkara grants, at an interval of two hundred and eighteen years, were absolutely identical.
As the most convenient way of dealing with certain miscellaneous mistakes, I will now give the historical details that are asserted in these spurious records ; noticing, at the same time, as far as I can check them, other items taken by Mr. Rice from extraneous sources.
The founder of the family was Kongasivarman. In an inscription of A.D. 968-69 at Lakshmeshwar, he is said to have had the proper name of Madhava; and Mr. Rice has obtained an inscription at Humcha, dated A.D. 1077.78, which, I think, calls him Dadiga Madhava, i.e., apparently, "the portly Madhava," his son Kiriya-Madhava, and the latter's great-grandson Ang&la-Madhava. His title appears as Maharajadhiraja in the Tanjore and Harihar grants, but as Mahadhiraja in all the others : and, in connection with this point, it is to be noted that, whereas the first is a perfectly genuine title, it did not penetrate into Western India until after the time of Pulikesin II. (A.D. 609-10 to 642), and that the second is a nondescript title which elsewhere occurs only once, in connection with Dharasêna II. of Valabhi, and is, in itself & most suspicious item. He is described as "a sun of the Jahnaviya family," i.e. of the family belonging or relating to the river Gangå ;? as being of the Kåņvåyana gôtra; and as having acquired (or exhibited) strength and puissance by severing a large pillar of stone with a single stroke of his sword : and the Mallohalli grant, No. 3, seems to speak of him as "a forest-fire burning the thicket of the Bâņa kings." The Udayêndiram grant of a Ganga prince named
Mr. Rice says (Coorg Inscriptions, p. 10) that persons with Indian experience will recognise the fact "that such a dame may well be used as a sort of clan name, by tbo PafcbAlA artificers, who invariably claim "affinity with Vigvakarmaa, the artificer of the gods, and are addressed in ceremonious correspondence as of the " Visvakarma-vama." To this I need only say that, in spite of the very large mass of materials that are now available, no other such instance can be adduced from any epigraphic records ; and that Sir Walter Elliot, whom Mr. Bice has referred to as holding similar views with himself on this point, said that it would be " very forced "solution of the difficultly" (Coins of Southern India, P 113). - Sir Walter Elliot's general conclusion was that * neither of them" (neither the granta nor the chronicle) "afford reliable chronological data to determine either " the beginning or the end of the dynasty " (loo. cit. p. 115).
* Compare Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. p. 214, text, lines 41-43, and Vol. I. p. 364, lines 7-9 from the end of the text.
This name is also written Kongonivarman, Kongiņiverman, and Kongulivarman. It seems to have been a generic name, belonging to every member of the family, rather than a proper name.
• Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 107.
See his Annual Report for 1891; in which he quotes the record as giving the names of two brothers, Dadiga and Madhava, standing at the head of the genealogy.
• Ind. Ant. Vol. XIX p. 30fi.
1 JAhnavi is a name of the Ganges, as the daughter of the sage Jubnu. For the Eastern Ganga version of the circumstances under which the family name was acquired, see Ind. Ant. Vol. XVIII. p. 170.