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No. 25.]
SPURIOUS SUDI PLATES.
171
were taken from some common source which remains to be discovered, it seems impossible to decide. But it adds some further details, which are sufficiently instructive. According to the grants, the founder of the family was Konganivarman. The chronicle mentions this person; with the date of A.D. 189-90 or 190-91 for his installation, at Skandapura. But it also gives the names of sovon previous rulers of the same kingdom, of a different family, and it tells us that they were of the Reddi or Ratta tribo, and belonged to the Suryavansa or Solar Race. And, not only does it make this pointed statement, but, of these persons, five are distinctly to be identified with members of the Rashtrakûţa dynasty of MAlkhôd, whose dates, far from lying before A.D. 189, fall between about A.D. 675 and 956. The names and relationships of the seven rulers, as given in the chronicle, areViraraja-Chakravartin, who was born in the city of Skandapura; his son Govindaraya; his son Krishnaraya; his son Kalavallabharaya; his son Govindaraya, with the date of A.D. 82-83; his. son Chaturbhuja-Kannaradêya-Chakravartin; and his son Tiru-Vikramadêva-Chakravartin, who is said to have been installed at Skandapura in A.D. 178-79, and to have been converted from Jainism to Saivism by the celebrated Serkaracharya. And the second to the sixth of them are plainly-Govinda I. of the Rashtrakata dynasty (three generations before A.D. 754); his grandson Krishna I.; the latter's son Kalivallabha-Dhruva ; Dhruva's son Govinda III. (A.D. 782-84 and 814-15); and either Govinda's grandson Kannara-Krishna II. (A.D. 888 and 911-12), or the latter's great-grandson Kannara-Krishna III. (A.D. 940 and 956). The placing of these kings before the supposed founder of the Western Ganga family, and in the first and second centuries A.D., establishes at once the utter worthlessness of the chronicle for any historical purposes, whether it is a composition of recent date, or whether it can pretend to any age.'
It is hardly possible, after this detailed exposition, that any genuine doubt can remain as to the spurious nature of the grants, and as to the complete fatility, and worse, of placing reliance on either them or the chronicle for any historical or antiquarian.purposes. But the question may very reasonably present itself,- What was the object of the invention of the genealogy that is exhibited in these spurious records ? And I think that even this can be satisfactorily answered. There are plain indications that, just about the period, the last quarter of the ninth century A.D., - that has been established above as the earliest possible one for the fabrication of the Merkara grant, all the reigning families of Southern India were beginning to look up their pedigrees and devise more or less fabulous genealogies. The Purânic genealogy of the Rashtrakūtas makes its first appearance in the Sangli grant of A.D. 933.5 The Purâņic genealogy of the Chalukyas presents itself first in the Korumelli grant of shortly
1 See the extracte from Prof. Dowson's abstract (Jout. R. As. Soc., P.8., Vol. VIII. p. 1 ff.), which are attached to the first account of the Merkara grant (Ind. Ant. Vol. I. p. 860).
Even this detail is wrong; for the Rashtraktas (Rattas) attributed themselves to the Somavamsa or Lunar Race.
The wrong statements of relationship, by which each person is made the son of his predecessor, and the perversion of Kalivallabba into KAlavallabha, are thoroughly typical features of such docuinent. - It has been suggested (Ind. Ant. Vol. XIV. p. 124) that the first Govindarkys representa Govinda II., son of Krishna I.; and that the proper order of these two Dames has been transposed. But I see no reason for adopting this suggestion. The composer of the chronicle evidently got hold of some Rashtrakuta record which, as several of the do, started the genealogy with Govinda I., and omitted Govinda II., wbo did not reigo.- Chaturbhuja. Kanparadeva-Chakravartin may be, as has previously been assumed, Kannara-Krishna II. But, for the reasons given above in connection with the mention of king Akalavarsha in the Morkar grant, I think that he is more probably Kannara-Krishna III.
Another document of the same kind (except that it is known to be of absolutely modern date), which has been similarly used for the creation of imaginary history about Mysore, is the Rájdall-kathe, with its wonderful
of the Bruta-Képalis Bhadrababa and supposititions grandson, med Chandragupta, of Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta of Pataliputra (nee Ind.. Ant. Vol. XXI. p. 167). . Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 247.
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