Epigraphia Indica Vol 06

Author(s): E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 89

66
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. VI.
not disclosed in it)- began in that same year, and, if we were to identify SatyavâkyaRajamalla, as Mr. Rice has done, with that Satyavâkya, thus making the year A.D. 870-71 his initial date, then we should have to allow a rule of sixty years by his father Rapavikrama,1 which is not admissible after so long a rule as that of Śripurusha-Muttarasa immediately before or almost so. And there is also another reason. Mr. Rice has brought to notice inscriptions at Baragûr and Hêmâvati which mention an intermarriage of the Gangas and the Nolambas during this period. The Baragûr inscriptions tell us that Satyavâkya-Rajamalla had a son Nitimârga, whose younger sister Jâyabbe was married to Nolambâdhiraja son of Pallavadhiraja, and that Nolambâdhirâja and Jayabbe had a son Mahendrâdhiraja, who was ruling (the Nolambavâḍi province) at the time when these records were written. One of these Baragar inscriptions is dated S.-S. 800 (expired), A.D. 878-79. This date is obviously the date of Mahendrådhiraja. And it follows that Satyavákya-Rajamalla must have come very appreciably before A.D. 878-79, for him to have a grandson who was then ruling (the Nolambavâḍi province), even if he was only an infant ruling it nominally. The date of A.D. 370-71, which is coupled with the name of Satyavâkya-Rajamalla in the Husukûra inscription, can, therefore, be only taken as his final date. And, pending the discovery of dated records which may fix anything more definite, we may divide the preceding interval into the periods of A.D. 810 to 840 for Ranavikrama and A.D. 840 to 870-71 for Satyavâkya-Rajamalla. I identify SatyavâkyaRajamalla with the Satyavákya-(proper name not disclosed)- of the Dodḍahundi inscription, and, consequently, bis father Ranavikrama with the Nitimârga- (proper name not disclosed) who is named in that same record as the father of that Satyavákya. No chronological question is involved in this; because that record does not contain any date, Saka or regnal. But the record can only be placed in the period A.D. 800 (or thereabouts) to 860; and it falls quite naturally into its proper place anywhere about A.D. 840. In connection with the records of Satyavákya-Rajamalla, we need only note further the fact that the Husukûru inscription mentions, as his Yuvaraja or chosen successor, Bâtarasa, who, it tells us, was then governing the Kongalnaḍ and Pânâd provinces. The Kongalnåd was an enchasira or eightthousand province,-see, for instance, an inscription at Kuragalla, which mentions it as such, i.e. a province that included, according to fact or tradition or conventional acceptation, eight thousand cities, towns, and villages. And the Pânâd or Pannâd was an arusdeira or six-thousand province; see, for instance, an inscription at Dêbûr.7 The two provinces were
1 Unless, of course, we place Śripurusha-Muttarasa appreciably later than even the period that I have proposed for him. In favour of doing that, it might be urged that there is the Sara guru grant (Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Hg. 4, with a lithograph), purporting to be of his time, the characters of which prove one or other of two things,- either that the grant is spurious, or that it must be placed much nearer A.D. 870 than 805. But I do not think that Śripurusha-Muttarasa can be carried on any later than A.D. 814-15 at the utmost.
2 Ep. Carn. Vol. III. Introd. p. 4, and Vol. IV. Introd. p. 11. I am quoting the Baragar inscriptions from readings for which I am indebted to Mr. Rice.
Or perhaps Jalabbe, or something else; the final reading of the name seems to have not been fixed yet. See page 43 above. Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Hs. 92.
On the question of these numerical components of the names of territorial divisions, see Dyn. Kan. Distrs. p. 298, and note 2, and Ind. Ant. Vol. XXIX. p. 277, note 18.
1 Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Nj. 26.- The Pânâd province figures, unfortunately, as a ten-thousand province throughout Mr. Rice's writings and maps (see, notably, Ep. Carn. Vol. IV. Introd. p. 4, and the maps in Mysore, Vol. I. pp. 300, 314). But it is correctly mentioned as a six-thousand in even line 18 of the spurious Merkåra grant, on which is based the erroneous assertion that it was a ten-thousand. The mistake is traceable back to Dr. Burnell, who wrote when the science of epigraphy was in its infancy, and who arrived at the conclusion that the akshara before the word sahasra, 'thousand,' in the passage in question, is a slight variation of the cave numerical symbol for ten' (South-Ind. Palao. p. 67). I pointed out, some years ago (Ind. Ant. Vol. XVIII. p. 363), that, according to the lithograph in Ind. Ant. Vol. I. p. 362 (see also Coorg Insers. p. 4),- which undoubtedly represents the original much more correctly than does the representation of the akshara given in Dr. Burnell's book, the akshara is distinctly the syllable chhd. I did not venture then to decide what it might mean. But, with the Dêbûr inscription as onr guide, we know now that it is a Prakrit word meaning 'six,' and that the passage speaks of " the village