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No. 34.]
PATHARI PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF PARABALA.
281
Here we not merely have, at the end of each half verse, the synonymous words abharanabhashita and alamkaranabhúsvita, either of them similarly used in a double meaning, but we also find a form of the same verb (drisyanté and dadrite) in exactly the same position in both verses. At the same time the manner in which the verse of the Sifupalavadha com mences, clearly shows how we ought to interpret the first half of Harsha's verse: the ornaments with which the enemies were decorated consisted in the wounds inflicted on them when their limbs were cat to pieces. I am aware that what I have pointed out here is not of any great value now, because we have lately learnt from another inscription that Magha lived long before the middle of the 9th century A.D.
Among the contents of the prajasti there are three points of partioular interest. The first obviously is, that the inscription is one the only one hitherto discovered- of a Rashtrakata king Parabala, for whom it furnishes a date in A.D. 861. The second point is, that Parabala's father Karkaraja defeated, and invaded the territory of, a king Nagávalóka. And to these may be added the statement that an unnamed elder brother of Karkardja's father Jâjja, after defeating certain Karnatas, took possession of the Lata kingdom.
As regards the first point, we knew indeed from the very earliest Sanskrit inscription brought to the notice of European scholar3 - the Mangir plate of Då vapålal translated by Sir Charles Wilkins in 1781 - that the Påla king Dharmapala married Rappadevi, a daughter of the glorious Parabala, the ornament of the Båshtrakûţa family;' but as the name Parabala could not be traced in any subsequent inscription, scholars conjectured that it was a biruda of one of the Rashtrakūtas of Malkhôd, perhaps of Govindaraja III. or Amoghavarsha I., according to the notions which they had formed regarding the time of Dharmapala. Now there can not remain any reasonable doubt that the Rashtrakūta Parabala of our Pathari inscription is identical with the Parabala of the Mungir plate, a daughter of whom was married by Dharmapala. But it does not follow that Dharmapala's reiga must therefore be taken to have commenced so late as the middle of the 9th century. Many Indian kinga have had unusually long reigns, and at present we know nothing about the length of Parabala's reiga, while all that we know for certain in this respect regarding Dharmapala is that he reigned for at least 32 years. The zeal and activity displayed by the officials of the Archwological Survey in the search for epigraphical documents encourage us to hope that before long we shall be in possession of materials that will definitely fix both the exact time of Dharmapala's reiga and the chronology of events generally which took place in Northern India during the 8th and 9th centuries.
The king Någåvaldka who was defeated by Parabala's father Karkarija seems to have been a ruler of some importance. I have no doubt that he is identical with that Någåvalóks who is mentioned in verse 13 of the Harsha inscription of Vigrabaraja, in terms which would imply that he was the overlord, and who certainly was contemporary, of the Chåhamåna Gävaka I. of SAkambhari, whom in my Synchronistic Table for Northern India I have roughly placed at the commencement of the 9th century. There has lately been discovered a copper-plate inscription of a Chåhamana Mahdedmantadhipati, which records grant that was made at Bhrigakachchha in the increasing reign of victory of the glorious Negåvalóks, and which apparently is dated in the Vikrama) year 813 (corresponding to about A.D. 756)* I owe a photograph of it to the kindness of Mr. Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojhs, but would wait for impressions before expressing an opinion regarding ita genuineness and value.
See As. Res. VoL L p. 128, and Ind. Ant. Vol. XXI. p. 253.
I need hardly point out that this name looks like the well-known birudas ending in avaldka of certain Rashtrukāta kings (Khadgdvalóka, Vikramdvalóka, oto.).
See above Vol. II. p. 131, line 13 of the text, where the actual reading of the original is froman-Nagd. salbka-pranaransipao .
• It the grant is genuine, the donation recorded in it was probably ma le on the 28th October A.D. 756.
