Epigraphia Indica Vol 19

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 33

16
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XIX.
belonged to the Bharadvaja-götra and was a student of the Vajasaneya-sakhā, with all its income barring such as had already been granted to gods and Brahmanas. The document would show that the original grant was issued by sri-Sarvvavarmmadēva and sanctioned. by Mahārāja Nagabhatadeva. It would further show that, owing to the incapacity of the controlling officer (Vyavaharin) in the reign of Ramabhadradeva, it was disturbed for some time and Bhōjadeva, the grandson of Nagabhaṭadeva, revived it on the old terms in the year 893 of the [Vikrama era] on the fifth day of the bright fortnight of Kartika which corresponds to Wednesday, 18th October, A.D. 836.
4
The charter was written by Rudrata, the Dütaka being Bäläditya who was the son of Rajyabhaṭṭārika. I have already stated that the donor of the grant was Bhōjadeva, the son of Ramabhadradeva and the grandson of Nagabhațadeva. That he was the Gurjara Pratihära king of Kanauj is too clear to require demonstration. The genealogy1 given in the document is too strong a proof to require further support. The point worth consideration is the identity of the Sarvvavarmman spoken of in the document. We are told that the grant made by this chief was confirmed by Nagabhaṭadeva. This statement would make Sarvvavarmman to be the contemporary of Nagabhata who flourished cir. 816 A.D. The fact that he is described as a Paramesvara would show that he was a subordinate prince. The epithet of Paramésvara reminds us of Sarvvavarmman, the Maukhari king who is likewise called Paramesvara in the Asirgadh Seal inscription. But the identification depends on the contemporaneity of the Pratihara king Nagabhata. The Maukhari Sarvvavarmman, as I have shown elsewhere, was the son of Isänavarmman, who flourished about the year 611 of the Vikrama era, that is, cir. 554 A.D., and that he ruled about the last quarter of the sixth century of the Christian era or some two hundred years before Nagabhata, the ambitious Pratihāra ruler who confirmed the grant. So Sarvvavarmman of this inscription cannot be the homonymous prince of the Maukhari dynasty; nor can we identify him with the Sarvvavarmma-Maharaja of the Nirmanda grant of Samudrasena or other rulers of the same name who came long before him. The only prince whose identification will fit in with this chief, as far as I am aware, is the one mentioned in the Sanjan plates of Amöghavarsha which have recently been published in this journal. The contents of this valuable document have been fully dealt with by Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar. It tells us that Govinda III, perhaps the most remarkable Rashtrakuta king who flourished cir. 793-815, vanquished Nagabhața of the Imperial Pratihara dynasty, who was the son of Vatsaraja or the father of Ramabhadradēva and the grandfather of Bhōjadeva, the donor of the grant under notice. Further, it informs us that the same Rashtrakuta king after his victorious return from the north came to the Narmada on whose banks, at the foot of the Vindhyas, he temporarily settled in the kingdom of a petty ruler called Maharaja-Sarvan. It was here that a son was born to him who was called Amoghavarsha alias Mahārāja-Sarvan. Mārasarva, as has been remarked by Prof. Bhandarkar, is the same as Mahārāja-Šarvan and the Sribhavana of the Radhanpur plates of Govinda III must have been his capital. To which dynasty this prince belonged, we are not told in any of these inscriptions. But that he must have been an important ruler seems to be clear. Our charter shows that he must have held sway over the tract around Kalañjara where the agrahara or the Brahmana village Valaka (or Valaka) lay, otherwise he could not have made a gift of it. That he was a tributary of Nagabhata can safely be surmised from the fact that the grant made by him was confirmed by the latter.
1 For the genealogy of this dynasty see Kielhorn's Northern List, No. 10, and the A. S. R. for 1903-04, pp. 277 ff.; Ep. Ind., Vol. XVIII, p. 100.
V. A. Smith, Early History of India, (4th ed.), p. 393; Konow: Ep. Ind., Vol. XII, p. 200. Fleet: C. I. I., p. 219.
Fleet: C. I. I. p. 290.
Ibid p. 241, and Vol. VI, p. 250,
Above, Vol. XIV, pp. 118-4.
Above, Vol. XVIII, pp. 235 ff.