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No. 15.] AN INCOMPLETE GRANT OF SINDA ADITYAVARMAN: SAKA 887. 167
Most of these Sinda or Chhinda families distinguished themselves from the 10th to the 12th centuries A.D. as feudatories of the Later Chalukyas. But some we can trace to earlier times. The Nesari plates1 of the Rashtrakuta Gōvinda III, dated Śaka 727, mention a prince named Nagahastin who was an ornament of the great. Chhinda family and belonged to the lineage of the lord of serpents. The family of Adityavarman also was, as we have seen, a feudatory family which probably owed allegiance to the Rashtrakutas.
We have not so far come across records of the Sindas or Chhindas earlier than the age of the Rashtrakutas. But that does not mean that these families rose into prominence for the first time in the ninth century A.D. As we have already seen, the founder of the family was a contemporary and probably a feudatory of the Kadambas. He must, therefore, have lived in the fifth or sixth century A.D. when the Kadambas were powerful in the South. As a matter of fact we find in that age a family with the analogous name Sendraka which was subordinate to the Kadambas. The territory under its rule was called Sendraka-vishaya. From the statement in the Bennur grant that the Kadamba king Krishnavarman II made the gift of a village in the Sendraka-vishaya while on a victorious march to Vaijayanti (modern Banavasi in North Kanara), it is conjectured that the Sendraka-vishaya lay not far from the Banavasi kingdom. It is generally identified with the Nagarakhanda division of the Banavasi-Twelve-thousand which from another inscription is known to have been under the rule of the Sendrakas. It was thus contiguous to, if not identical with, the Sinda-vishaya mentioned above. The Sendrakas appear first as feudatories of the Kadambas, but on the downfall of the latter they transferred their allegiance to the Early Chalukyas of Badami, with whom some of them had become matrimonially connected." When Pulakesin II conquered Maharashtra and Lata from the Kalachuris, he placed a trusted Sendraka chief named Bhanusaktis in charge of part of the conquered territory, viz., Southern Gujarat and Khandesh. Grants of land' made by Bhanusakti's grandson Allasakti have been discovered in those parts of the country. Later on he was ousted from Southern Gujarat, but he and his son continued to rule in Khandesh. The latest record of the Sendrakas found in Khandesh is the Mundkhede copper-plate inscription of Allaśakti's son Jayasakti, which is dated Saka 602 (A.D. 680).
The inscriptions of the Sendrakas do not generally connect their family with any eponymous hero, but the Lakshmesvara stone inscription states that they were of the bhujagendr-anvaya or lineage of the king of serpents'. It seems, therefore, that the Sendrakas came in course of time to be called Sindas or Chhindas; for, besides similarity in their names, the two families claimed descent from the same race and in some cases ruled over the same territory.
1 G. H. Khare, Sources of the Mediaeval History of the Deccan (Marathi), Vol. I, pp. 15 ff.
2 Ep. Curn., Vol. V, pp. 594 ff.
* See the Balagāmve inscription of the time of Vinayaditya, Ind. Ant., Vol. XIX, pp. 142 ff.
• See Hälsi grant of Harivarman, Ind. Ant., Vol. VI, p. 31.
The Sendraka prince Śrivallabha Sēnānandaraja was a maternal uncle of Pulakesin II, above, Vol. III, pp. 50 ff.
No records of this chief have so far come to light, but as his grandson Allagakti was ruling in A.D. 653 and 657, Bhanusakti has to be placed in the first quarter of the seventh century A.D. He was thus a contemporary of Pulakesin II.
One of these was discovered at Bagumra in South Gujarat and two in Khandesh. See New Ind. Ant., Vol. I, p. 747. Bühler gives this chief's name as Nikumbhallaáakti, but Nikumbha was only a biruda. It is used as such with the name of Allagakti's. son Jayasakti also. The recently discovered Sendraka plates spell the chief's name as Nikumbh-allasakti. See New Ind. Ant., Vol. I, p. 747.
This record was first published in the first volume of the Marathi magazine Prabhata of Dhulia. See also the An. Rep. of the Bharata Itihasa Samshödhaka Mandala, for Saka 1834, pp. 169 ff.
Ind. Ant., Vol. VII, p. 106. This record is, however, held to be spurious.
