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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. VI.
copper-plate grants from Sûdi and Mysore. Since then, Mr. Rice bas given us, in his Epigraphia Carnatica, Vols. III, and IV., about a hundred records on stone, from Mysore, which he has referred to the Ganga period, and nearly all of which are genuine and have been properly so referred. And we have further, in the way of genuine records, the Vallimalai inscription of Rajamalla grandson of Sripurusha-Muttarasa, from the North Arcot district, - the Biliūr, Peggu-ûr, and Kôtûr inscriptions, from Coorg - the Begur inscription of Ereyappa and the Sravana-Belgola epitaph of Nolambântaka-Mârasimba II., from Mysore -- and, from the Dharwar district, the Adaraguñchi and Gundûr inscriptions of the same prince and the Hebb&! inscription of A.D. 975. Neither anywhere in the whole of this mass of genuine materials, nor in any other such record known to me, is there the slightest allusion to, or hint of, the fictitious genealogy, anterior to Sivamára I., that is presented in the spurious records. And it is now plain that that genealogy was not claimed by Sivamära I. and his descendants, but was simply evolved by the persons who fabricated the forged grants, in concocting the necessary pseudo-historical portions of their spurious title-deeds.
The general subject of Purâņic genealogies will be an interesting topic for examination on some future occasion. Meanwhile, in respect of such of the great families of Southern India as can be traced back to before A.D. 1000, the position is as follows. The earliest such genealogy that we meet with, in any but a merely allusive and rudimentary form, is that of the Pallavas of Kanchî; and it appears first in the Kuram grant of the second half of the seventh century A.D. We meet next, as a matter of certainty, with that of the Rashtrakûtas of Málkhed, in the Nausari grants of A.D. 915. And that of the Yådavas of the Sêuņa country, from whom sprang the Yádavas of Dévagiri, is first found in the Samgamnêr grant of A.D. 1000.3 As a matter of certainty, the Puranic genealogy of the Cholas is first met with in the 80-called Leiden grant of A.D. 1019 or 1020;but it would be carried back, in somewhat different forms, to the period A.D. 900 to 940, if a fragmentary grant of Vira-Chola from Udayêndiram is a genuine original record and is referable to the time of Parantaka 1.,6 -- and to the year A.D. 915, if the Udayêndiram grant of the Gaoga-Bâņa prince Hastimalla-Prithivipati II., dated in the fifteenth year of Parantaka I.,7 is, again, & genuine original record actually drawn up in that year. The full Parâņic genealogy and legendary history of the Chalakyas are first met with in a record of the eastern branch, the Koramelli grant of the period A.D. 1022 to 1063. And the Purânio genealogy and legendary history of the Eastern Gangas of Kalinganagars are first found in a grant that bears the date of A.D. 1118-19.10 These are the dates at which, as far as our information goes at present, the genealogies are first met with. But, obviously, each of the genealogies had been selected, thought over, and elaborated, at a time appreciably earlier than that at which we first come across it. The earliest of them was that of the Pallavas. It was, probably, & discovery of it, in some ancient record, that set the fashion which became so general. And all the historical considerations point to the latter half of the ninth century A.D, and to the tenth century, as the period during which the other early great families of Southern India applied themselves to putting forward, or in some cases elaborating, claims to descent from the Lunar and Solar Races, and to working ap their own traditions 80 as to establish presentable historical connections with those races.
In the way of fictitious pedigrees of a pretended historical kind, without Purápic introductions, we have an instance in that of the Kadambas of Hângal,- from the name of
1 South Ind. Insors Vol. I. p. 144.
Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol XVIII. pp. 261, 267. . Ep. Ind. Vol. II. p. 212. • See, provisionally, Archaol. Suru. South Ind. Vol. IV. p 204. Above, Vol. III. p 79.
. See Dr. Haltzsch's remarks, above, Vol. IV. p. 223. South-Ind. Insors. Vol. II. p. 375.
. See page 65 sbove, note 4. Ind. Ant. Vol. XIV. p. 48.
1. Ind. In. Vol. XVIII. p. 165.
