Epigraphia Indica Vol 23

SR No.: 032577
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1935
Total Pages: 436
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 256

No. 30,1 SANGUR INSCRIPTION OF YADAVA MAHADEVARAYA : SAKA 1186.
193
of the Telunga power suggested by the above epithet must have a reference to the wars conducted in the time of Ganapati especially after A. D. 12601 Mahādēva must have taken away from him (the title of) Panchamahāśabda and the elephants of war as recorded by Hēmādri, soon after his accession to the throne. It is not, however, possible to understand the exact circumstances which favoured the rising of the Silāhāra, Gūrjara and Kakatiya kings immediately after the death of Kộishņa.
Mahādēva, like his predecessors, entrusted the government of his southern country to his minister Dēvarāja: apparently to guard against the Hoysala invasion into his territory. The Hoysaļas of Dorasamudra who had lost considerable territory in the north-west of Mysore to the Yadavas under Simhaņa and Křishņa must have endeavoured to wrest back from them their past possessions and the struggle seems to have continued till the last quarter of the 13th century A. D. when we find some Yādava regiment stationed at Hāvēri marching against Dõrasamudra. The Mamdāpur inscription of Kộishņa (Saka 1172) records the defeat of Hoysala Sõmēsvara by the king, perhaps in conjunction with his brother Mahādēva who was the Yuvarāja under him The epithet Hoysaņarāya-kolāhala may bear reference to this or any subsequent fight undertaken by Mahādēva against the Hoysalas.
Incidentally, the record throws some light on the extent of the Kannada language in the north in the 12th and 13th centuries A.D. Sonnalige which was the home of Siddharāma now forms part of the modern Sholapur, the headquarters of the Sholāpur District in the Bombay Presidency. The Kannada language must have been prevalent in this part of the country in the 12th century A. D. This view finds confirmation from the statement in the Marāthi work Lilācharitra of the Mahānubhāva school, written in A. D. 1190 that the sixty-lac Mahārāshtra country extended as far as Tryambaka-kshētra (i.e., Nāsik) on the bank of the Gangā (i.e., Godavarī) in the west. Jānēsvara the celebrated saint of Mahārāshțra who flourished about 1290 A. D., praises in his abhangas the god Vitthala of Pandharpur as the deity of Kannada and Karpātaka and also remarks in his Gitabhāvadipikā that the southern limit of Mahārāshtra in his time was the south bank of the Godāvari?. This would show that even as late as the 13th century A. D. Kannada which is a southern neighbour of Marāthi, extended up to at least Nāsik and the Godavari, not to speak of Sholāpur and Pandharpur on the bank of the Bhimā in the farther south There can, therefore, be no doubt about the veracity of the statement contained in the Kavirājamārga that the northern limit of the Kannada language in the 9th century A. D. was the Gödāvari8.
1 This was the last year of Krishņa. See Fleet, Dynasties, etc., p. 527.
* The Yadava sway in the territory of the Kakatiyas is testified to by the discovery in 1922 of a pot of trea. sure buried in the earth at Rachapatnam in the Kaikkalur Taluk of the Kistna District. The pot contained 43 gold coins known by the name of padma-fankas which bear the legends Singhapa, Kanhapa, Mahādēva and Sri Rāma in Deva-Nagari script (J.P.A. 8. B., Vol. XXI-Numismatic Supplement No. XXXIX, pp. 6 ff). The find may be taken to support the epigraphical and literary evidence regarding the defeat of the Kakatiyas by the sucobesive Yadava kings from Singhans downwards.
. Dr. Fleet thinks that he may be identical with Toragaleya Dēvarasa appearing in an inscription at Hávēri. See Dynasties, etc., p. 528.
*B. K. No. 75 of 1932-33.
Poet Chaundarasa (cir. 1300 A. D.) is supposed to have lived at Pandharpur. Karnataka Kavicharite, Vol. I p. 403.
• Marathi-bhasha-udgama va vikäsa by Mr. Kulkarni, pp. 191-2.
Maharashtrada-mula by Mr. S. B. Joshi of Dharwar, pp. 40 and 49-50.
• Parichchheda 1. Kumara-Ramana-kathe of Nanjunda (cir. A. D. 1626) sloo states, in conformity with the evidence of the Marathi literature, that Karnataks was bounded on the north by the Godavarl and on the south by the Kávērt in his time.