Epigraphia Indica Vol 25

Author(s): Sten Konow, F W Thomas
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 23

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. XXV.
A. D., who may bave been defeated by these kings. It is therefore difficult to uphold the identification first proposed by Kielhorn.
We find, on the other hand, the names Jaitrapāla, Simbaņa and Ramachandra in the genealogical list of the Later Yādavas of Dēvagiri, who flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D. Jaitrapala, whose name seems to have occurred at tbe end of line 9, is probably identical with the homonymous king who was the father of Simbana. The names of Rudra, the kings of Andhra and Cbāla in 11. 7-8, seem to have occurred in the course of the description of Jaitra pāla's victories : for we know from the introduction to Hēmadri's Vratakhandal as well as from the Paithan plates and other Yadava grants that Jaitrapāla killed the Kakatiya king Rudra. This latter king is in some places called the king of Andhra. We can therefore unhesitatingly identify the kings mentioned here with the Yādava kings of Dēvagiri. That the kingdom of the Yādavas extended in the East as far as Lānji in the Bālāghāt District is known from a stone inscription of the dynasty found at Lanji' which mentions the Yadava king Ramachandra.
We know from other records that Simhaņa was succeeded by his grandson Krishna, but his name does not occur in the extant portion. We can, however, conjecture that he must have been described in line 15, which speaks of a king having made the earth forget its grief due to separation from Simhana. The names of Kţishộa's brother Mahādēva and his short-lived son Amana may have been omitted in the present record. As no successor of Ramachandra has been mentioned here, it seems that the inscription was put up during his reign. It may, therefore, be referred to the last quarter of the thirteenth century A. D.
As the kings mentioned in the present inscription are thus proved to be of the Yādava dyTasty of Dēvagiri and no inscriptions of the Kalachuris are found in the Marathi-speaking districts of the Central Provinces, Kielhorn's view that the Kalachuri year commenced in the month of Āśvina cannot be supported by any usage current in the territory round Nagpurt.
The mutilated condition of the inscription makes it difficult to say what it was intended to record. But the fact that the genealogy of a personage named Rāghava is given in lines 16 and 17 where he is also said to bave been entrusted by Ramachandra with the government of his whole empire combined with the statement in l. 63 that this Rāghava felt gratified on doing something seems to show that the object of the inscription was to record some service rendered by Rāghava to the deities at Rämtēk-perhaps some repairs done to the temple of Lakshmana where the inscription is put up. M ueve, who is mentioned in 11. 70-71, seems to have been a local official in charge of the work. : The hill on which the main temples of Rama and Lakshmana are situated is called Sindūragiri and Tapamgiri (for Tapõgiri) in the present inscription. The tradition about the former Cf. for fuga: fane te rena:
mat qu ofafu afrettu: 8 See R. G. Bhandarkar's Early History of the Deccan, Appendix C. * Ind. Ant., Vol. XIV, p. 316.
See Hiralal-Inscriptions, etc. (Second Ed.), p. 20. LAnji is about 100 miles north by Best of Nagpur. Hiralal remarks that some passages of this record correspond exactly to those given in the Ramtök Lakshmana temple inscription'. We have examined the Lanji inscription in the Nagpur Museum, but have failed to notice any such passages.
• As a matter of fact Colebrooke was mistaken in supposing that the year commenced in Nagpur in the month of Avina. As shown elsewhere (above, Vol. XXIV, p. 122), the ers current at Nagpur in Colebrooke's days was the so-called Salivá hana or Saks era, its months were amania and the year commenced in Chaitra and not in Alyins. For the commencement of the Kalachuri year, see above, Vol. XXIV. pp. 116 ff.
In the larger Sinddragiri-mähätmya the name occurs in the correct form Tapogiri,