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No. 19.) TIPPERAH COPPER-PLATE GRANT OF LOKANATHA: THE 4TH YEAR. 305
4, p. 193) and that the present seal was an old one preserved in his own family. [But see note l on p. 303 above.-Ed.] I do not think that the paramēšvara of verse 7 and the nipa Jivadhārana of rerse 9 cau be identicul or that the latter's army met with destruction in conflict with Lokanatha. Who gain is the Jayatungarar ha referred to in verse 8 of this plate ? We know that the Rashtrakūta kings of the medieval ages used various birudas, e.g. those eading in avuloka, turiga, varsha and rallabha. Dr. Floet is of opinion that, as a result of inter-marringas, other families also adopted these birudas. So it is very difficult to identify this Jayatungavarsha, a contemporary of Lokanātha. But these historical questions cannot be settled at the present omont, and they must remain open till the discovery of other materials throwing light upon them.
A remarkable fact gathered from this inscription is that in ancient times even a Brahmana like Pradshasarmau could rise to the dignity of a m thi-samantat by the strength of his own art.. We have seen that the paternal grandfather of this grantee (Prado hasarman) was a Brāhmaṇa of the götra of Agastya (1. 17) and that his maternal great-grandfather was one of the agnyihita (1. 18) Brahmaņas who off red sacrificial oblations to the sacred fires according to the injunctions of the fastras. Both the paternal and maternal lines of this maha-sinanta were widely known for their strict observance of orthodox customs (yath-ichar-fcharana-pratishthita, 1. 20). King Lokanatha's paternal line des ended from Bharad vāja (v. 2). We have also seen that the Brahmaņas for whose residence Pradoshaśarmap bosoaght land from his liege lord were chaturvidya Brāhmaṇas. These facts go some way to disprove the theory of these scholars who think that the half-mythical king of Bengal na med Adisara flourished before the rise of the Palat kings and that he imported orthodox Brāhmaṇas from Kananj into Bengal, as there was dearth of such Brahmanas there.
The next question relating to the Hindu society of the times that can be discussed here is in connection with the caste of Loranātha, who is called (in verse 9) a karana-a mixed caste according to Manu. The great-gran father of Lokanatha's father is described in v. 2 as sprog from the family of the sage Bharadvája, and the great-grandfather and grandfather of his mother are in verse 6 called respectively dvija-varah and dvija-sattamah; but his mother's father is in the same verse describe l as a pirasava. So we see that, although tha tirst few ancestors (both paternal and maternal) of Lakanatha were Brahmaņis, his maternal grandfather had not a pare Brahmana origin, since it may be inferred that his Brāhmaṇa father married a Sadra wife and he (the issue) was, therefore, known to have been a parasava. The use of this term in this inscription is very important, as showing the prevalence of the anuloma marriage in the Hindu Society of the seventh centary. A Brāhmaṇa coald, according to Manu and later law makers also, marry ladies from all the three inferior castes as well. Another well-known instance of an orthodox Brahmana marrying a sodra wife in the seventh century can be furnished from Bäņa's Harsha-charita, wherein we read that Bāna's father Chitrabhanu (a Brāhmaṇa well-versod in the Vedic lore and keeper of the sacred fires) has his son Bāņa by his wife Rajadevi of the Brāhmaṇa caste; but in Chapter I of the same book we find an allision to the poet's father having taken a wife of the Sudra caste also, by whom he had two sons, Chandrasena and Matpishēna, whom he dereribes as " bhritarau parašavau." It is a matter for research when this system of anulom: marriage began to fall into disuse in Hindu Society. From the description of the grandfather of Lokanātha in verse 6 it may be seen that the social status of a pirasava in the seventh century was not at all low-or, how could
I Vide Dr. Fleet's paper on "Some Rashtrakūta Records," above, Vol. VI, pp. 188.189. We have the namo of Jayatungasimha of the Kano country: but he belonged to # later age (above, Vol. V, appendix, p. 79, No. 675). (Note also the Ráslitrakuta Tanga-Dharmávaloka of Kielhoru's Inscriptions of Northern Iudia, No. 630.-Ed.]
. For the definition of this term vide Manu, IX, 178, and Gautama-Śästra, IV, 16 and 21, and Aubanas Smriti, v. 36 (p. 47 of the Smriti sam uchchaya, Amandāframa Sanskrit serio).
