Epigraphia Indica Vol 07

SR No.: 032561
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 522
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 23 MB

Page 263

220
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. VII.
in the same verse in the Bêhatti plates of A.D. 1253, which contain another Devagiri-Yadava record.1
That the family-name of the princes of Saundatti, who ruled the Kundi three-thousand province, was Raṭṭa, not Rashtrakuta, is unmistakable. And it is also quite plain that, while Rashtrakuta was the formal appellation which it was customary to apply to the kings of Malkhed in ornate language, the real practical form of their family-name was Raṭṭa. This is made clear, in one way, by the fact that Ratta is the name that was used in forming those birudas, or secondary appellations of the kings, of which the family-name was a component, and of which we have at present instances dating from A.D. 915 and onwards; namely, Raṭṭakandarpa in the cases of Indra III., Govinda IV., Khoṭṭiga, and Indra IV., and Raṭṭavidyadhara in the case of Govinda IV. But it is made clear in other ways also. In the records of the Malkhêd family, except in the case of the Kadaba plates which are not of unquestionable authenticity, the appellation Rashtrakuta is found only in Sanskrit verses, in those parts of the records which were introductory to the passages containing the practical details of the records, and were devoted to exhibiting the pedigree, reciting the achievements, and generally magnifying the importance of the kings, in the principal literary language of the time. And even in the record put forward in the Kaḍaba plates, where the appellation occurs in prose, the passage is in ornate prose of an elaborate and stilted kind, or, as Dr. Lüders has styled it, in "exceedingly rich and flowery language." The name Raṭṭa appears first in the Sirûr and Nilgund inscriptions of A.D. 866. And in them it is presented, not in a Sanskrit verse, but in the Kanarese prose prasasti which introduces the practical details of the records. At about that time, there arose a practice of presenting compositions, which did not even include excerpts from the early standard drafts such as we have in the case of verses 1 and 2 in the Sirûr record and verses 2 and 3 in the Nilgund record, but which departed altogether from the early standard drafts, and were also liable to be independent even of each other. The composers of those later records indulged in various liberties, which had not been allowed to the composers of the earlier records. And, in the drafts presented in the Cambay plates of A.D. 930 and the Sângli plates of A.D. 933 and the Kharda plates of A.D. 972, the real name of the family, in either form, was actually suppressed altogether, and the members of the dynasty were simply allotted, in connection with their then recently elaborated Purânic pedigree, to "the race of the Yadus" or "the lineage of Yadu." It was only in those later compositions that the habit crept in, of using the name Raṭṭa in Sanskrit verses. And, even then, a kind of apology was made for using the more practical form of the name in the more ornate parts of the records. That the biruda Raṭṭakandarpa, in the case of Indra III., should be used in a Sanskrit verse, in the Bagumrå records of A.D. 915, in that practical form and without being metamorphosed into Râshtrakutakandarpa, is natural enough. But it is found rather far on in the record. And the composer of the draft presented in those two sets of plates was careful to introduce the dynasty by its more stately appellation of "the family of the Rashtrakutas," before he proceeded to speak of "tho kingdom or sovereignty of the Rattas " and to bring the biruda Raṭṭakandarpa into one of his verses. So, also, the draft presented in the Dêôli plates of A.D. 940 and the Karhâḍ. plates of A.D. 959 introduces the dynasty as "the race of the Rashtrakutas," before it, again, speaks of "the kingdom or sovereignty of the Rattas." And these two drafts, presented to us first in records of A.D. 915 and 940, emphasise the point that Ratta was the real and practical form, and Rashtrakuta was the ornamental or stately form, of the family-name. Such are the facts. But the Raṭṭas of Malkhêd have come to be familiarly known as the Râshtrakutas of Malkhed, because that form only of their name is presented at all prominently in
1 Jour. Bo. Br. B. de. Soc. Vol. XII. p. 43, text line 17. As stated in the preceding note, the doubling of the r was effected here, also, by placing a superscript r over the ordinary r.
3 Vol. IV. above, p. 38.
See note 11 on page 215 above.