Epigraphia Indica Vol 03

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 393

324
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. III.
Of the latter, the first that was brought to notice is B., one of the set of three charters issued by Maha-Bhavagupta I. in his thirty-first year. It was edited in 1876, in the Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 55 ff., by Baba Rangalala Banerjea, who propounded the views-(1) that Maha-Bhavagapta I. belonged to the dynasty of the great Guptas," meaning, apparently, the Early Gaptas, or to some branch of it established in the Kalinga country; (2) that E., which record, though not then published, had been examined by him, proves that a king named Yayati reigned in Orissa when Maha-Sivagapta, the son of Maha-Bhavagapta I., was the king of the three Kalingas; (3) that the kings of Orissa were feudatories of the Guptas, and made all their grants in the names of their paramount masters; (4) that Yayati is to be identified with a certain Yayiti-Kësari, who, according to a (supposed) historical account of Orissa, compiled by Mr. Andrew Stirling from two local van tavalis or genealogical lists of kings and from the Rajacharitra chapter of the Madid-Pañji or archives preserved in the temple of Jagannatha at Purt, and published in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV. (1825), pp. 254 to 305, was the founder of the Kösari dynasty of Orissa, and reigned from A.D. 473 to 520;9 and (5) that the period of Maha-Sivagupta, and of the record itself, is determined by this identification.
Next there was brought to notice E., the charter issued by Maha-Sivagupta in the ninth year of Yayati, s.c. in his own ninth year, which was edited by the same gentleman in 1877, in the Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. XLVI. Part I. p. 149 ff. On this occasion, he again treated Mah-Sivagupta and Yayati as distinct personages; and, in fact, he pointedly emphasised the supposed difference of personality. He repeated the view that the Kosaris of Orissa acknowledged the Gaptas as the paramount power,-1.e. that Yayati was a feudatory of Maha-Sivagupta, and that the grant was made by Yayati in the name of his supreme sovereign. He again accepted the period of A.D. 474 to 526 for Yayati. And, taking Janamējaya to be simply an "ancestor" of Yayâti,- not his father; thongh this is the relationship which is distinctly stated in the record, and which was acknowledged by the Babu himself in his translation of it, he identified Janamêjaya with a person of the same name who, according to tradition, founded the city of Katak-Chaud war ;and he placed him seven generations before Yayati, and allotted him to the earlier part of the first century A.D.
In the same year, and in the same volume, p. 175 ff., A., another of the charters issued by Maha-Bhavagupta I., and dated in the sixth year of Janamêjaya, s.e. in his own sixth
Called simply. Śivagopta ' by the Baba, who did not notice the point that the father of Mebl-Bhayagupta I. was Sivagupta, and his son was Maba-Sivagupta. So also, except in the translation, he called Mahl-Bhavagupta I. simply' Bhavagupta.'
According to Mr. Stirling, he commenced to reign in A.D. 478 after the end of saka-Sarovst 896 (loc. cit. p. 264), and died A.D. 520 (p. 266).-Since Mr. Stirling's time, the records of the temple of Jagaonatha have been twice investigated (see Sir William Hunter's Orissa, edition of 1872, Vol. Lpp. 198, 199, and notes 43, 44); in 1868 by Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, whose arrangements for pablication, however, were prevented by the priests from being carried out; and at an earlier date by Bhabani Charan Bandopadhyaya, who published his results in Bengalt work entitled Puruohottamachandrika. Sir William Hunter says that this account "is faller # and more carefully done than Stirling's excellent sketch;" he is "inclined to believe that all the really historical " matter has now been extracted;" and he has given the list of kings and dates, thus made out, from B.C. 3101 to A.D. 1871, with the leading features of the statements made in connection with them, in his Orissa, VOL. II. Appendix VII. pp. 183 to 191. This account agrees with Mr. Stirling's account, in representing Yayati-Kësari as the founder of the beari dynasty. The period that it gives for him, however, is A.D. 474 to 526,- differing slightly from the period arrived at by Mr. Stirling; and there are differences in some of the other dates also.
He recognised, indeed, on palæographic grounds, that the records "cannot be very Ancient (loo. oit. p. 60). But he said distinctly that he supposed Mahl-Sivagapta" to have been contemporary of Yayati.Kosari, who reigned between the years 74 and 626 A.D." (for these dates, see the end of the preceding note).
• See the preceding two notes.
.." the four-gated Katak." It would appear that the original city was Chaudwar or Chaudward, on the north bank of the Mahanadt; and that the prosent town Katak, onigo Cattack,' on the south buak, is of later origin.