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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. VI.
Mârassa)ba, under whom a certain Dadigarasa was governing the district,- menning, of course, the district that included the village at which the record is ; the name of it is not specified.
The record is not dated. But the characters of it are fairly referable to closely about A.D. 800. And there can be no doubt that the person whom it mentions as Marassalba is to be identified with the Mâråsarva of a verse, used in the account of the Rashtrakuta king Govinda III. in the Waņi and Rad banpur grants of A.D. 807, which runs :-" Having heard, through his own spies, that he (Govinda III.) was encamped on a slope of the Vindhya mountains, and recognising that (though 80 far away) he had (practically) arrived at his own territory just as if it were Dhruva (on a previous occasion), king Mârâśarva, impelled by fear, quickly went to satisfy his (Govinda's) desires by giving up) his choicest heirlooms, such as had never been amassed before, as well as to propitiate his feet by doing obeisance to them." Further, we may safely take it that Marassalba-Márásarve was, like the Kattiyara of the Didgür inscription, one of the twelve confederate kings and princes headed by Stambha-Kambayya, who shortly after A.D. 794 sought to dispute the sovereignty of Govinda III. And, as the elephant, depicted so prominently on the stone, can hardly be taken as the emblem of the Dadigarasa of the record, who was plainly a person of very minor rank and importance, we can only understand that it stamps Marassalba-Máråśarva as belonging to the family of the Western Gangas of Talakad. We shall have to consider hereafter who, exactly, Marassalba may have been. He may be some member of the Ganga family whose existence the Mysore records have not yet disclosed. Or the name may possibly be another appellation of Sripurusha-Mattarasa, who in the course of his career did unquestionabiy find an opportunity to assume the paramount power and titles. Or it is possible that it may be the name from which, first by substituting the synonymous fiva for the sarra of its Sanskritised form, and then by metathesis, the persons who fabricated the spurious records of the Western Ganga series may have obtained the name of Sivamára II. as an alleged son of SripurushaMuttarasa.
In connection with the general history of the period, it is convenient to make here a note regarding the identification of a place which is mentioned in the verse in the Waņi and Rådhanpar grants which comes next after the verse that mentions Marassalba-Mârågarva. The verse tells us that Gôvinda III. spent a rainy season at a place named śribhavana, and then marched thence, with his army, to the Tungabhadra, where he conquered and despoiled the Pallavas. Mr. Wathen was told that Sribhavana denotes "Cowldurga, in Mysore, south of the river;" that is to say, apparently, Kavalêdurga, near the north bank of the Tunga, in the Tirthahalli tAluks of the Shimoga district, about seven miles on the west of Tirthahalli. Dr. Bühler felt certain that Sribhavana is not Cowldurga,' but could not himself identify the place Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji proposed to identify Sribhavana with 'Sarbhon' in the
1 Ind. Ant. Vol. XI. p. 158, text line 25 ff., and Vol. VI. p. 67, verse 17 ; also page 250 above, Prof. Kielhorn's rendering. Prof. Kielhorn has detected what I and Dr. Bühler had not reengnised, namely, an astrological allusion to the comat Dhraya. But I consider that there is certainly also a secondary reference to the king Dhruve. I hold that, just as the astrological allusion to the asterism Jyeshta, in verso 6, was suggested, to the composer of the verses, by what Dhruva had done to his elder brotber, so, also, the allosion here to the comet Dhruva was suggested by something that he had done to the territory of Mårdsarvs, and the verse contains & secondary reference to it.
? See page 252 above.
It is possible that Dadigarasa, also, was a Gangn. But, even so, it is very unlikely that a Ganga sbould, at that time, be exercising local authority so far to the north of the real Ganga territory, unless his paramount sovereign slso was a Gangs. And it seems more probable that this Dadigarasa was a member of the Balivamss of the Dadigamandala country, in Mysore, which is mentioned in an inscription of A.D. 1113 or 1114 at Sudi in the P& tåluks (see Ind. Ant. Vol. XXX. p. 111).
• Ind. Ant. Vol. XI. p. 162, and Vol. VI. p. 71, verse 18. Jour. R. 43. Soc., F. S., Vol. V. p. 352, note.
. Ind. Ant. Vol. VI. p. 63, note.
