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SOME RASHTRAKUTA RECORDS.
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No. 28.]
is itself the official title, or that, like the official title, it means a headman of a rashtra." It was plainly intended to mean 'highest, most excellent, chiefs, or leaders, of the Raṭṭas.'
It may be added that both the original family-name Raṭṭa, and ita ornate form Rashtrakûța, came to be afterwards used as personal names. Thus, the Khârêpâtau plates of A.D. 1008 mention a Silâhâra prince named Raṭṭa and Raṭṭaraja; and Hemachandra mentions in his Parisishfaparvan a man named Rashtrakûța. It may also be remarked that Kalhana has asserted the existence of a queen of the Dekkan, of Karnâta extraction, named Raṭṭâ, alleged to have been a contemporary of Lalitâditya of the Kârkota dynasty of Kashmir; but there can be no doubt that Dr. Stein has rightly explained the passage, not as establishing the real existence of any such queen, but as presenting a personification of the dynasty of the Rashtrakutas of Malkhed.*
The original home of the Rashtrakutas of Malkhéḍ.
In line 13 of the Sirûr inscription of A.D. 866, and in line 16 of the Nilgund inscription of the same date, Amôghavarsha I. is described as Lattalúra-pura-paramésvara, "supreme lord of the town of Lattalûra." The same town is mentioned, sometimes as Lattalûr and sometimes as Lattanûr, in also the records of the Raṭṭa princes of Saundatti; for instance, the Mantûr inscription of A.D. 1040 describes Eraga-Ereyammarasa as Lattalûr-puravar-ésvara, "lord of Lattalûr, a best of towns, an excellent town, a chief town," and the Bhôj plates of A.D. 1208 describe Kârtavirya IV., and the Saundatti inscription of A.D, 1228 describes Lakshmidêva II., as Lattanûr-puravar-édhisvara, " supreme lord of Lattanûr, a best of towns." And in these epithets we have, in various forms, a hereditary title commemorative of the place which the Rashtrakuta kings of Malkhed, and, after them, the Ratta princes of Saundatti, who, according to some of their later records, belonged to the same lineage with those kings,- claimed as their original home. The name of the town is further presented to us in a transitional form in the Sitâbaldi inscription of A.D. 1087, which applies the epithet Latalaura-vinirgata, "come forth or emigrated from Latalaura," to a feudatory of the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI., namely to the Mahasamanta Dhâdîbhadaka or Dhidibhandaka, also called the Ránaka Dhaḍiadêva, whom it further describes as maha-Rashtrakut-ánvaya-prasúta, "born in the great lineage of the Rashtrakutas, or in the lineage of the great Rashtrakutas ;" and the record applies
1 There would, however, not have been anything derogatory even in that derivation of the name. The name of the well known Andhrabhṛitya kings is explained. as having taken its origin from the fact that the first of them had been a servant (bhritya) of the Andhras. And there was a family of kings who referred themselves to a lineage known as the Gurjarapratihåra lineage (see Vol. III. above, p. 263), evidently because their ancestors had been doorkeepers of the Gurjaras.
2 Vol. III. above, p. 300, text lines 32, 34.
See Monier-Williams' Sanskrit Dictionary, under ráshtra.
See his translation of the Rdjataramgint, Vol. I. p. 185, note on verse 152 of the fourth book.
See, respectively, Ind. Ant. Vol. XIX. p. 165, and p. 248, and Archeol. Surv. West. Ind. Vol. III. p. 113, text line 62, and Plate 73 in Vol. II. p. 224.- By a printer's mistake, not noticed at the time, the published text of the Bhoj record gives the name of the town, in line 86-87, as Láttanûr, with the long d, instead of the short a, in the first syllable. The necessary correction should be made. At present, I cannot trace back the use of this title to any date before A.D. 1040 in records which belong unquestionably to the Rattas of Saundatti. The Kalasapur inscription of A.D. 933, of the time of the Rashtrakuta king Govinda IV., does, indeed, mention a Mahdadmanta whom it describes as Lattalúr-pura-paraméivara and as trivali-pareghoshana; and it is practically certain that he was a Ratta: but the original record is greatly damaged, and I cannot recognise, in the ink-impression, either his name, or any epithet which specifically refers him to the lineage of the Raṭṭas. The Sogal inscription of the Ratta prince Kartavirya I., of July, A.D. 980, does not seem to make any mention of Lattalûr. And it may be added that the town is certainly not mentioned in the Saundatti inscription, of December of that same year, of the Mahdadmanta Santivarman (Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. X. p. 204); but, for various reasons, it is very questionable whether that is really a Ratta record at all.
