Epigraphia Indica Vol 34

SR No.: 032588
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1961
Total Pages: 384
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 197

139
No. 201
NOTE ON NESARIKA GRANT OF GOVINDA III, SAKA 727
'the king of Magadha' (Magadhadhipa regarded as the same as Pithi-pati, lord of Pithi'), and the Rashtrakuta chief Mathana or Mahana was the king of Anga' (Angapa) under king Ramapala, (c. 1084-1126 A.D.). We may also refer to the Deoli' plates of Rashtrakuta Krishna III (939-68 A.D.), in which the Rashtrakuta monarch's command is stated to have been obeyed by the Anga, Kalinga, Ganga and Magadha kings standing at his door (dvärasth-Anga-Kalinga Ganga-Magadhair abhyarchchit-ajña), the same stanza also mentioning Krishna III as the initiator of the Gaudas in the vow of humility (Gaudānāṁ vinaya-vrat-ärppana-guruḥ), even though the Sarnath inscription" of Kumaradevi mentions Añga as a territory within Gauda. At the time of Krishna III, the Pala empire comprised Anga or East Bihar and Magadha or South Bihar as well as Gauda, i.e. West Bengal in a narrow sense though the name was often used to indicate wider areas of Eastern India.
The importance of the mention of Dharmapala as the king of the Vangala country or of the Vangala people has been rightly stressed by Dr. Majumdar. The reference, as he points out, certainly indicates that the home territory of the Palas lay in Vangala. Dharmapala's dominions comprised a number of territories lying in the present Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It was rather difficult to designate bis empire by a single territorial name. We know that he is sometimes called Vanga-pati,' the lord of Vanga', as in the Sagartal inscription of Bhoja, and sometimes' the king of Gauda' as in the Sanjan plates of Amōghavarsha I, because Vanga and Gauda forming parts of his empire were both well-known geographical names and the latter name was sometimes actually used to indicate wide areas of Eastern India since the 7th century when Dandin, in his Kavyadarsu, names the East Indian style of Sanskrit composition after Gauda. This was no doubt. the result of the expansion of the Gauda kingdom under rulers like Sasanka (first quarter of the 7th century) whose dominions included parts of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and for sometime also of U.P. Gauda was thus a more appropriate name for the Pala empire and not only are the Pāla kings called 'the lord of Gauda' very often in the records of their contemporaries but there is reason to believe that they themselves preferred the designation. It is interesting to note that the tradition about 'the five Gaudas', referred to in an inscription of 926 A.D. and in Kalhana's Rajatarangini (c. 1150 A.D.), developed in the early medieval period. The extensive conquests of kings like Sasanka and Dharmapala appear to have contributed to its development.
The representation of Dharmapala in the present record as the king of Vangala, which was a small tract of land in his vast empire, has to be regarded as a sort of sneer at the Pāla monarch who was one of the mightiest Indian rulers of his age. The personal name of the Pāla king has been mentioned only in this case apparently because Vangala as a geographical name was more or less unknown at the time while the name of Dharmapala was famous. Its mention in the record incidentally shows that Vanga and Gauda were later annexations to the Pala dominions.
There is another interesting aspect of this question. Vangala became famous in the political geography of India with the rise of the Chandras in the 10th century. These Chandras originally ruled over Chandra-dvipa, i.e. Bakla Chandradvip in the Buckergunge District of South Bengal, About the third quarter of the 10th century they conquered Vanga, a name then often applied in a restricted sense to the territory around the Vikramapura region covering the present Munshiganj Sub-division of the Dacca Distriot and the Madaripur Sub-division of the Faridpur District, although
1 See Ray, DHNI, Vol. I, pp. 338-39.
Above., Vol. V, p. 193, verse 13.
Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 324.
Ibid., Vol. XVIII, p. 108, verse 10.
Ibid., p. 214, verse 14.
Cf. IHQ, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 129 ff.
Cf., e.g., verse 13 of the Badal pillar'inscription (Gaudalekha malā, p. 74.)
Cf. above, Vol. XXIII. p. 46; Rajalarangini, IV, 468.