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No. 13.)
REWAH STONE INSCRIPTION OF KARNA: (CHEDI YEAR 800.
103
of his expedition in the west, worshipped the god Sömēsvara, evidently Sömanātha near Verävel in Käthiāwār and dedicated to the deity the effigy of the (Näga) Kaliya wrought with jewels and gold1. His invasion of the Pandya country also seems to be corroborated by a mutilated lines in the contemporary Kārītalãi inscription which mentions his forces encamped on the bank of the Tämraparņi. It seems rather strange that there should be no reference to Lakshmanarāja's victory over the Cholas who, and not the Pandyas, were supreme in the South in the latter half of the tenth century A. D., and who must have been attacked and defeated by Lakshmanarāja, before he could press as far south as the Tamraparņi in the Pandya country. We have, therefore, to suppose that the Cholas had not yet recovered from the attacks of the Rashtrakūta prince Krishna III and that the Pandya king was raising his head and trying to re-establish his power with the help of the Rashtrakūtas) when his country was raided by Lakshmanarāja. The Gürjara king defeated by him must have been one of the weak successors of Mahipala II as pointed out by R. D. Banerji. The same scholar found corroboration of this victory in the statement of the Bilhări inscription that Lakshmanarāja defeated the lord of Kosala'. He further identified this prince with his namesake mentioned at the head of the genealogy in the Kahla plates of Sodhadēva and conjectured that he must have placed one of his sons in charge of the country conquered from the Gurjaras. But these suppositions do not seem to be correct. Lakshmanaraja's victory over the king of Kõsala is mentioned in connection with the despoilment of the lord of Odra. The Kosala appears, therefore, to be Dakshina Kosala or Chhattisgarh and the adjoin. ing states. Further, Lakshmanarāja, who founded the dynasty ruling in the Gorakhpur District, U. P., must have flourished long before the Lakshmanarāja of our record; for, Rājaputra, the next prince mentioned in the Kahla plates, who, however, was not his immediate successor, must be referred to circa A. D. 775, as his third lineal descendant Gunāmbhõdhidēva I was a contemporary of the Pratihāra king Bhõja I (circa A. D. 836-885). Lakshmanarāja of the present inscription cannot, therefore, be identified with the homonymous king mentioned in the Kahla plates.
Our inscription next mentions Yuvarajadēva (II) as the son and successor of Lakshmanarāja. He is evidently the second prince of that name mentioned in the Bilbäri stone inscription and the Benares plates of Kama. The name of his elder brother Sankaragana who is known from the aforementioned two records as well as from the Käritalãi stone inscription' has been omitted here probably because he was a collateral. The description of Yuvarājadēva II and his son and successor Kökalla II given here is quite conventional.
After Kokalla II, his son Gangěyadēva came to the throne. Of the four verses devoted to his description in this record, three (viz. vv. 18, 20 and 21) occur in the Goharwa plates, but one of them (v. 20) is employed there to describe his son Karna. Verse 19 which is not known to occur anywhere else describes in a conventional manner Gängęyadēva's victory near the sea coast. This may refer to his campaign in Orissa which is specifically mentioned in the preceding verse (18).
1 Above, Vol. I, p. 260.
. Only the lower portions of a few letters in the beginning of this line are preserved. The line has been writted in Kielhorn's text. I read the letters as nitaram dalēnu || Tamraparnar-tate.
* Compare Toffiaafu terity of forfara in the Karhad plates of Krishna IJI (above, Vol. IV, p. 285, v. 35). Perhaps the poet's intention was to namo the peoples living on the borders of India, and the Pāņdyas are mentioned here as living in the extreme South.
The Haihayas of Tripuri and their honuments (Vem. 4. 8. 1., No. 23), p. 12. * Above, Vol. I, p. 200. Ibid., Vol. VII, pp. 83 ff. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 179.
