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214
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
From the end of line 34 our inscription becomes more interesting, but also presents some serious difficulties. According to the Kalas-Budrûkh plates of Bhillama III. and the Bassein grant of Seunachandra II., Śrirâja was succeeded by his son Vaddiga, and he again by Bhillama II., who married Lakshmi or Lachchhiavvâ, a lady born in the Rashtrakuta family. The present grant first tells us (in lines 34-40) that from Rajan or Raja sprang the prince Vandiga (the Vaddign of the other plates), a great warrior, who was a follower or feudatory of the illustrious king Krishna or Krishna. raja, and that this Vandiga married the lady Voddiyavva,' a daughter of the great prince (malánripa), the illustrious Dhorappa. It then has to be referred, as the text stands, to the same Vandiga, two verses (in lines 40-45), the first of which glorifies (as it seems) Vandiga for having in battle destroyed the fortune of the great prince Muñja," and for having thereby made the goddess of fortune observe the vow of a chaste woman in the house of the illustrious king Ranarangabhima; while the second verse, among the advantages or blessings which he enjoyed, besides recording that Sindinagara was his residence, somewhat pointedly enumerates the fact that Lakshmi incarnate, or in visible shape, always dwelt in his house, full of joy. After these verses, what may be called the poetical part of our inscription contains three more lines (45-47), which read like fragments of verses or like verses turned somehow into prose, in praise of a new Siva-temple, called Vijayábharanandtha; but there is no indication as to who erected this temple or why it is mentioned here at all, an omission which must appear the more remarkable because this temple is poetically described as the collected fame, or the fame in bodily form, clearly of its founder who is not named.
The grant recorded in this inscription was made by Bhillama II., and there can be no doubt that the genealogy given in the introductory prasasti should have been continued to, and that the author who composed it did bring it down to, that Bhillama. Moreover, I consider it to be perfectly certain that the Lakshmi, spoken of in line 43, is the Lakshmi or Lachchhiavvå of the other grants, the wife of Bhillama, the donor of this grant; and I feel almost as sure that the temple, spoken of in lines 45-47, which, or the god worshipped in which, was named Vijayabharaṇanátha, was founded either by Bhillama himself one of whose titles or birudas, as we learn from line 51, was Vijayábharana, or by his wife. I am thus driven to the conclusion that the writer, who copied this inscription, has omitted at least two verses, one verse, before the words svenáráti in line 40, recording that Voddiyavvå bore to Vandiga a son, named Bhillama, and another, after the word -mahasaḥ in line 45, stating that Bhillama or his wife Lakshmi erected the temple eulogised in lines 45-47. And accordingly, what is stated in the verse in lines 40-42, must in my opinion really be referred, not to Vandiga, but to his son, and it was Bhillama II. who defeated the great prince Muñja, and who thereby secured uninterrupted fortune for his sovereign lord, the illustrious king Ranarangabhima. The question then arises, who were these kings Muñja and Ranarangabhima, and who was the king Krishna or Krishnaraja, to whom Bhillama's father Vandiga owed allegiance P
Our grant being dated in Saka 922-A. D. 1000, it is clear that Bhillama II.
According to the Rassein grant Lachchhiavva was the daughter of Jhajharaja.
7 This lady built a Siva-temple, the exact name of which I am unable to make out.
See note 32, below.
