Epigraphia Indica Vol 17

Author(s): F W Thomas, H Krishna Sastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 36

No. 4.]
A VAKATAKA INSCRIPTION FROM GANJ.
The inscription, which is a record of the reign of Maharaja Prithivishona [I.) of the Våkātaka family, states merely that a feudatory of his, Vyāghradēva by Dame, had made some. thing or other for the sake of the religious merit of his parents. The exact nature of this act of piety has been left unspecified, just as in the other version discovered by Cunningham. The silence of these records on the point leads us to infer that the slabs on which the inscriptions are inscribed must have been built into that the making of which they were intended to record.
Our information regarding the Vkataka dynasty is unfortunately very scrappy. All the important events in its history known to us have been succinctly summarized by Kielhorn in his article on the Balaghat plates of Prithivishěņa II. ; we can even now add nothing of con. sequence to what has been said there. We do not possess exact dates for any of the kings of this family, nor can we form any clear idea of the extent of the country ruled over by them. Regarding Prithivishēna I. we know that he was the son of Rudrasēna I. and the great-grandson of Pravarasēna I., the latter being either the very first king or one of the early kings of this house. It should seem that the Vākātaka king at whose hands the lord of Kuntala' had suffered defeat, as recorded in the Vakataka stone inscription at Ajanta, was this same Prithivishēpa. Beyond these few facts we know nothing of much consequence regarding the king referred to in our record.
About Vyāghradeva, the feudatory of Prithivishēna, we know still less. Indeed, Vyåghra appears as the name of chieftains in several well-known inscriptions ; : but it is not possible to identify our Vyåghradeva with any of them.
Bühlert assigns the copper-plates of the Vakataka Pravarasòna II., the grandson of Prithi, vishēna I., to the fifth or sixth century A.D.; it is not known to me on what grounds. I have examined the inscriptions of the Vākāțaka dynasty and compared them with the allied inscrip tions engraved during the time of the Guptas, of the kings of Sarabhapura, of Trvara, of Kosala and of the early Kadamba kings, without being able to arrive at any definite conclusion regarding the age of the Vákātaka inscriptions. Bühler's date, however, appears to me to be far too early. My impression is that thpre can be no objection, on palæographic grounds, to assigning this record of the Vákatakas to as late an epoch as the seventh century A.D. I conclude this short notice by drawing attention here to the remark of Kielhorn that the Balaghat plate of Prithivishopa II., who was the son of the great-grandson of the Prithivishēna of our inscription, "may be assigned with probability to about the second half of the eighth century A.D."
TEXT.10 1 llVikatakan maharaja-sri 19. 2 Prithivishāna-pad-ā(m)nuddhyāts Vyāghradē, 3 vō mātāpitro[b] Spuny-ārtthe 14kpitem=iti [ll] Abovo, Vol. IX, pp. 268 f.
Arch. Surt. Weat. Ind., Vol. IV, p. 124, verse & Kielhorn's List of Insoriptions of Northern India, Nos. 270, 387 and 600. Indische Palæographie, PP. 62 f.
Corpw Inscriptionum Indicarun, Vol. I, No. 2-8. Gupta Inscriptions, Nos. 40-41.
Ibid., No. 81. Ind. Ant., Vol. VII, PP. 35-7.
Above, Vol. IX, p. 270. 10 From a set of estampages prepared and kindly lent to me by Mr. R. D. Banerji.
11 Read Väkäfakanan. Fleet in bis transcript has wrongly spelt this word with the dental # in Gupta Inscriptions, Nor. 53-54.
» Read fry.
18 Read puny artthi. Here also Fleet hoe wrongly transcribed the worl, both as regards tho dental # and the case-ending. In Cunningham's version the word 18 spelt exactly as here.
1 The construction is faulty. The verb should be in the active voice.