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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVIII.
There is no record of any conquest made by them, the eulogistio epithet of Jagadekamalla-vijayi added to the name of Yasabhañja being ambiguous. It may mean the conqueror of Jagadėkamalla or the one warrior and conqueror in the world'. It, however, seems that the Rajas of the Bhanja dynasty were connected with the Southern Jaipur instead of the Northern Jaipur of Rajputana, to which local chroniclers connect them, in the wake of all Rajputs, who consider it an honour to link themselves with the country regarded as the true home of the Kshatriyas. The Jaipur Zamindar, formerly a Raja, who still holds an estate covering about ten thousand square miles, relates that the predecessors of his family belonged to Silavama, and we know from the Buguda and Sasanka's charters that the family of Silödbhavas or Sailödbhavas (born of rock or hill) were ruling on that side about the 7th century A.D. It sent out its scions to different parts of the country, one of whom settled in the Vindhyas in the Central Provinces and conquered many countries round about, as revealed by the Ragholi plates,5 the only record yet found about that branch. Another adventurer, apparently, settled in Mayurabhanja. The date of the advent of the Mayurabhañja conqueror, as related in local chronicles (viz., 1,300 years ago), very well fits in with the dates of the inscriptional Silödbhavas, and the family has more than one Bhañja named after Śila: In fact, the oldest ancestor found in the inscription is named Silabhanja. Distinguished Indian families usually seek for supernatural origins. As is well known, Rajputs claim descent direct. from the Sun or the Moon. This may look edifying, but they have pushed the matter so far as to make it ridiculous. Some trace their origin from an inanimate object or an animal of any kind whatsoever, because such an origin implies some miraculous power. It mystifies the real origin which lurks beneath it and which might cause a blush in its bare nakedness. Here is, for instance, the origin of the Silödbhavas as recorded in the Buguda? plates of Madhavavarman :-"There was a personage named Pulindasēna, famous amongst the people of Kalinga. He, although endowed with many excellent qualities, did not covet sovereignty for himself, but rather worshipped Brahma in order that the god might create a fit ruler of the land. And Brahmā granted his wish and created out of a rock the lord Śilödbhava, who became the founder of a distinguished family." Laid bare, the story would show that the dwellers of the local mountains or rock produced a person, who became the ruler and as such the founder of a dynasty. In editing the Ragholi plates I have shown how Śailavamsa was patronymic and how the metronymic of the same family was Gangavamsa. The dynasty was thus the outcome of a mountaineer husband and a river-born wife (the sacred Ganges), which was delicately turned into a compliment, when describing the local river Salima on whose bank Köngeda, the capital of their kings, was situated.7 "On its banks covered with flowers of excellent trees," said the eulogist, " pools of water have formed resembling the river of gods (Ganga), which issued from the sky and the streams of whose waters are split and dashed outside by masses of rocks."8 Bereft of the allegory, this would signify that a brave mountaineer of Orissa married a Gangavamsi lady and their son became the founder of a new dynasty. By a similar process the Andavamsa family was evolved from a pea-hen's egg. A scion of the Sailavamsa left his parental home and went to the country where peacocks (Mayura) abounded, which gave to the people of that locality the appropriate name of Mayurikas, as found in the Rajim stone inscription of Jagapaladeva. He defeated them and thus became the Mayurabhañja (breaker of Mayñras) and in due course married a Mayurki, a local lady, whose
[The attribute anafaat given to Yasabhanja in 1. 11, Plate K, is very significant and may lead one to surmise that he defeated one of the Western Chalukya kings of Kalyāņi, perhaps Jagadekamalla II himself or one of the feudatories.-H. K. S.]
Hunter's Gazetteer, Vol. VII, p. 64 (Second Edition). Above, Vol. VI, p. 143 ff.
6 New Imperial Gazetteer, Vol. XVII, p. 355. Above, Vol. VI, p. 146,
Above, Vol. III, p. 41 ff. Above, Vol. IX, p. 41 ff.
7 Above, Vol. IX, p. 42. Ind. Ant., Vol. XVII, p. 135 ff.
