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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. IX.
where he had selected his residence. There can be little doubt that all these branches of the Kakaira family owed allegiance to some other power, which was very probably represented by the Haihaya kings of South Kôšala, as the use of the Kalachuri era by Pamparajadêva would indicate. Karparâja was apparently more ambitious than the rest. He sabdued the neighbouring princes, as our inscription relates, and probably set himself up as an independent ruler in the out-of-the-way jungles; that is perhaps the reason why he used the Saka era in his inscription instead of the Kalachuri era, thus intimating that he did not acknowledge the Haihaya domination, unless it was customary to use the Kalachuri reckoning in official documents involving disposal of property, etc., while the older Saka era was used for other religious and general purposes.
The earliest date of this line of kings is that which we get from the present inscription, tis., 1192 A.D., and the latest is that of Bhanudêva, 1320 A.D., there being thus a difference of 128 years between Karnaråja and Bhanudēva. Karyaraja stood in the same relationship to Bhanudêva as did the first ancestor Simharaja to Karnarája. Simha was great-grandfather of Karparaja, the latter being great-grandfather (or great-granduncle) of Bhånudeva, and if a similar interval is allowed between Simba and Karnaråja, Simba's time would be about 1064 A.D. According to this calculation the generations would be very long-lived, about 42 years each on an average, which is hardly probable, though in sporadic cases there would be nothing extraordinary about it. The present Raja family, according to its traditions, believes its first ancestor to have come from Orissa about Vikrama Samvat 1150 or 1093 A.D., and this curiously fits in well with the evidence afforded by the inscriptions under consideration. Apparently, then, Simharaja was the first emigrant, and he came about the end of the eleventh century or the beginning of the twelfth. The Râja family story as related before (above, page 124) is to the effect that a Puri king, having become a leper, quitted that place and came to Sihâwâ, which was merely a dense jungle, where he found a spring of water in which he took a bath which removed bis leprosy. He was then installed king of that place, and it is possible that the locality was named after him, being called Sinha + avah = Simluiwah (the comfort of Simha) which finally was corrupted into Sihåwå. From our inscription it appears that it was also known as Dévabrada tirtha or the holy lake of the gods, and there was certainly ample reason for calling it so. In fact a large portion of the Sihâwâ tract seems to have been regarded as a piece of holy land. Local tradition avers that it was the hermitage of the rishi Spingia, who is still worshipped there. Five miles from this place is the village Ratâwâ where Angâra (Angiras) rishi used to live, and Muchukunda had his ásrama in the village Mechakâ 22 miles from Sihåwå. About 10 miles west of Sihåwå there is Dévakața (the hillock of the gods), which also
1 It is perhaps more than a coincidence that a king Vyaghraraja of Mahakántara, who must have held sway in the same neighbourhood, is mentioned as early as the fourth century in the Alls bâbâd pillar inscription of Samudragupta, see Gupta Inscriptions, p. 6 ff.
* A variant of the same story is that a Puri king baving appointed an illegitimate son of his as his successor, the others took offence and quitted the place. They came over to the wilds of Chhatisgarh and became the leaders of the local tribes, who installed them as their kings. That there is some truth in this story is evident from the fact that the installation of most of thes, chiefs is considered complete when it is confirmed by a particular tribe, by way of expression of gratitude on the part of the Raja family. Thus the Kanker family seems indebted to the Halbås, the Kalahandi family to the Kandhs, the Rairakhol to the Butki Sudhs, the Bâmrå to the Bhuiyas, and so on.
• Besides the healing power of the spring, which in itself is sufficient to cause the place to become a tirtha, Sibi is the source of the Mahanadi or Chitrátpala, of which it is said :
Suvarnabhyd puri punya punyó Márjárakésarl, Kósaláyd mi trayaḥ punyah punyd Chitrôtpald nade. Suvarnapuri is the present Soapur, capital of the state of the same name, and Marjarakësari is another name of Narasimhanath in Boråsambhar Zamindari of the Sambalpur District. A visit to that place is held to wipe out all sins. En passant it may be noted that the apparent mistake of a sculptor in carving out a cat-lion instead of a man-lion has metamorpliosed the statue of the latter kept in the Narasimhanath cave, into a new incarnation of the God, to account for which there has been no lack of imagination on the part of the local Brahmans.
