Epigraphia Indica Vol 09

SR No.: 032563
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: E Hultzsch, Sten Konow
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1907
Total Pages: 498
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 28 MB

Page 44

No. 4]
TWO GRANTS OF INDRARAJA III.
I. raised the glory of the Ratta sovereignty immersed in the ocean of the Chaluk yas and thereafter assumed the epithet Viranarayana. If we read between the lines, we cannot fail to notice that the Rashtrakūta sovereignty had been shaken by the Chalukyas of Veigi to its very foundations in the early part of Amoghavarsha's reign. The Chalukya contemporary of Amoghavarsha I. was Narendramrigarâja-Vijayaditya II., who, in an Eastern Chalukya record, is represented to have fought, during twelve years, by day and night, a hundred and eight battles with the armies of the Gangas and the Rattas. The latter can be no other than the Rashtrakūtas of Malkhed, and it thus appears that NarendramrigarajaVijayâditya II. was a powerful king. We can, therefore, very well understand that he might have for a time eclipsed the glory of the Rashtrakûtas. Amoghavarsha I., however, was by no means slow to retrieve his lost reputation, and seems to have wreaked a terrible vengeance upon the Chalukyas, whom, as verse 13 informs us, he destroyed, just as a man burns chick-pea plants, the stalks of which have been pulled out by the root. That he inflicted a severe defeat on the Eastern Chalukyas can also be seen from the Cambay and Sångli charters, in which he is said to have gratified the god Yama with unprecedented morsels of cakes which were the Chalukyas. Verse 13 incidentally gives us the information, if my interpretation is correct, that the Chalukyas whom Amoghavarsha I. vanquished had devastated Stambapura, which is the same as Tamralipta, identified with the modern Tamlûk, the head-quarters of the subdivision of the same name of the Midnapur district, Bengal.
From Srivallabha(-Amoghavarsha I.), who was a comet of destruction to the Chalukya family (v. 14), sprang Krishnaraja (II.), whose fights with the Gurjaras used to be still remembered by old mon, as we are informed in verse 15. I have elsewhere pointed out that the Gürjaras, with whom the Rashtrakațas were often at war, ruled over Northern India and had their capital at Mahôdaya or Kanauj, and consequently the Gurjara prince defeated by Krishparaja II. (A.D. 888-911) must have been Mahendrapala (A.D. 899-907), the patron of the poet Rajasekhara.
Krishparaja II. had a son of the name of Jagattunga (v. 16), who married Lakshmi, the daughter of Raņavigraha, the son of Kokkalla of the Haihaya, i.e. Kalachuri, dynasty (vv. 17-19). It is worthy of note that Ranavigraha is here called Ched-isvara, i.e. lord of Chédi. The same fact is hinted by a verse in Jahlaộa's Saktimuktavali, quoted by Dr. Bhandarkar in his paper on the Karhad plates of Krishọa III., which purports to say that of rivers the Narmadá, of kings Ranavigraha, and of poets Surânanda were the ornaments of Chedi. The name Ranavigraha does not occur in the list of the names of the Kalachuris of Chêdi. From a Ratanpur inscription, however, we learn that Kokkalla had eighteen sons, of whom the first-born was a ruler of Tripuri, and the others lords of mandalas, i.e. minor chiefs. If this statement deserves any credence, Ranavigraha, being a ruler of Tripuri, i.e. of Chedi, and not of a mandala, was the eldest son, and the successor of Kokkalla. But from the Benares copper-plate inscription it appears that Kokkalla was followed by his son Mugdha. tunga-Prasiddhadhavala. We may, therefore, suppose that Raņavigraha and MugdhatuógaPrasiddhadhavala were one and the same prince.
The issue of the marriage of Jagattunga with Lakshmi was Indraraja (III.), whose epithets Ratta-Kandarpadeva and fri-Kirti-Narayana are mentioned in verses 20 and 21. The next verse contains & double entendre, and so far as its mythological sense goes, it does not present any difficulty. But the historical sense of this verse is by no means clear. This much is certain that it records the defeat of king of the name of Upendra by the Rashtrakūta prince Indraraja III. But who this Upendra was, and how the epithets krita
1 Ind. Ant. Vol. XX. p. 100. . Above, Vol. IV. p. 280.
? Abore, Vol. VII. p. 43 ; Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 252 f. • Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 33.
Id. Vol. II. p. 301.