Epigraphia Indica Vol 19

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

Page 95

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
70
[VOL. XIX.
to have defeated the kings of the Karppata, Lata and Gurjara countries as well as the lords of Chedi and Korhkana and to have meditated on the feet of the illustrious Sindhurajadova, who cleansed the earth from the mountains to the sea by his wide fame and meditated on the feet of the illustrious Väkpatiräjadeva (II), who meditated on the feet of the illustrious Siyakadova (II) of the Pramvāra (Paramāra) family of Dhara. The reference is very clearly to Bhoja I of the Paramara dynasty of Dhara, who was the son of Sindhuraja, the brother's son of Väkpatirāja II and the grandson of Siyaka II. The very fact that an ordinary feudatory chief dares to make a grant of land without referring the matter to his suzerain shows that the power of the Paramaras of Malava had weakened considerably at the time of the issue of the grant. It is known from the other inscriptions of the Paramaras of Malava as well as the Haihayas of Tripuri that Bhōja I, the conqueror of the Komkapa and the great patron of literature, had suffered a crushing defeat and had most probably fallen on the battle-field while trying to stem the tide of a combined invasion on the kingdom of Malava by Karnna, the king of Tripuri, and Bhima I of Gujarat. Though the successor of Bhoja I was on its throne in V. S. 1112 (=1055 A.D.), yet history shows that the kingdom of Malava lost its independence for a short time about that period. It regained its independence under Udayaditya, a kinsman of Bhōja I, and continued to be a divided kingdom up to the twelfth century. It was during these troublesome times that the grant was issued by a subordinate chief Yasovarmman, who, apparently, gave the genealogy of Bhoja I, by way of custom only. The Svētapada country, which is the same as the northern part of the modern district of Nasik, was once conquered by the Haihaya king Lakshmanaraja and again by Vapullaka, a general of Karnņa, the king of Tripuri, some time before the Kalachuri Chědi year 812 (=1061 A.D.). When he (ie., Vapullaka) erected a temple of Siva, in the inscription recording its construction he enumerated some of the famous battles in which he had fought for his king. Therein he also mentions his having defeated a king of Southern Gujarat named Trilochana, who is known from the Surat plates of Saka 972 (=1051 A.D.), and a Jain ascetic named Vijjala. The conquest of Śvētapada, which is adjacent to Surat, must have taken place after 1051 A.D. and before 1061 A.D., i.e., about the time of the fall of Bhoja I. We knew from the Nagpur prasasti of the rulers of Malava that " Bhōjadeva's end was unfortunate, and that during the troubles which then had befallen the realm, Bhöjadeva's relative Udayaditya became king, whose great achievement was that he freed the land from the dominion of (the Chedi) Karpa who, joined by the Karnatas, had swept over the earth like a mighty ocean." The same fact is referred to in v. 21 of the Udaipur prasasti of the rulers of Malava.
The grant under notice differs from the regular land grants of the Paramāra kings of Malava in the following details :-(1) The absence of the Garuda and snake seal or the emblem of the Paramaras. (2) The absence of the date and of the mention of the reigning king as kusali. (3) The absence of the customary verse at the beginning in praise of Siva. It is, there. fore, almost certain that this subordinate chief Yasovarmman had issued this grant during the period of anarchy which followed the fall of Bhoja I and the occupation of Malava proper by Karpa, the king of Tripuri, the anarchical state of things lasting up to the time of the defeat of Karna by Udayaditya. The Svētapada country whose location is now fixed by the mention of the temple of Kalakālēsvara, which still exists at a distance of ten miles from Kalvan, was not included in Mälava proper, but formed a part of the country that lay within the sphere of influence of the Paramara rulers at the time of their ascendency.
1 Ante, Vol. VII, p. 86 and note 3, 89, 1. 6.
Ante, Vol. II, p. 181.
Ante, Vol. I, pp. 236, 233.