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332
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
Samba (the son of Kșishộa and Jambavati). According to our author the first of these Maga Brahmans was Bharad vaja (verse 3), whose family had a hundred branches (verse 4). In one of these was born, as a son of a certain Damodara, Chakra påņi, who, compared as he is to Valmiki, must have been considered a poet of some eminence (verse 5). He had two sons, Manoratha and Daśaratha (verse 7), who were induced to come to the court of the ruler of Magadha (verse 15), the prince Varnamåna of the Måna family (verse 10), where one of them was appointed to the office of pratihára, while the other was made superintendent of the eunuchs (verse 11). Dasaratha again had two sons, Harihara and Purushottama (verse 22). Of Manoratha, to the praise of whose liberality,' piety, shrewdness, learning, etc., our author has devoted no less than six verses (12-17) and who is spoken of as a modern Kálidasa (verse 16), we learn that he married a daughter of Devasarman, a counsellor of the prince of the (Ghaudio country (verse 18); and that she bore to him also two sons, Gangadhara, the author of the inscription, and Mahidhara (verses 21-22). All these six men, Manoratha and Dasaratha and their four sons, are especially eulogized for their learning and proficiency in vedic studies (verse 23). The rest of the inscription treats of Gangadhara himself. Here it will be sufficient to say that he represents himself to have been a counsellor and friend of the Måna prince, the king Rudramâna (verse 24); that he married Påsaladevi, a daughter of Jayapāņi, an official of the king of Gauda, and his wife Subhagà (verse 29), and finally, that, according to his own account, he was the author of a poem entitled Advaitakata and had shown his skill as a poet also in the composition of other poems (verse 33).
The princes of the Mana family, mentioned in the above, have not, so far as I am aware, become known yet from other inscriptions, and it may therefore suffice here to state that Varnamâna and Rudramana must have ruled over Magadha (or part of it) towards the end of the 11th and at the beginning of the 12th century A.D.
As regards Gangadhara and his relatives, the inscription tells us distinctly that, like Gangadhara himself, Chakrapåņi and Manoratha were poets, and it may reasonably be assumed that some of the other members of the family, learned men as they were, also were in the habit of writing poetry. Now it happens that the Saduktikarná. mrita,' an anthology compiled by Sridharadasa in A.D. 1205, contains verses of six poets bearing the same names as six of the Maga Brahmans mentioned in this inscription, and, considering that these Brahmans lived in Eastern India and that the Saduktikarnänrita also was compiled there, I have little doubt indeed as to the identity of the six poets mentioned by Sridharadasa with Gangadhara, the author of this inscription, and five of his relatives, vis, his great-grandfather Damodara, his grandfather Chakra påpi, his father's brother Dasaratha, his own brother Mahadhara, and his cousin Purushottama.
of Gangadhara himself the Saduktikarnámrita has two verses which were first published by Professor Aufrecht in Zeitschrift d. Deutschen Morg. Ges., vol. xxxvi, p. 511,
See verse 12, nocording to which Manoraths on the occasion of a lunar eclipse went to the sacred place Purushotta. ma, wbich was situated near the sea.
. The reading of this name is doubtful; see below.
See Dr. Rajendralal Mitra's Notices, vol. III, p. 134.
4. Professor Aufrecht states the Saduktikarndwrita to be an anthology, called chiefly from Bengal poets Ibe compiler's father, Batudara, lived under Lakslimanasena.
