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No. 21.]
PURSHOTTAMPURI PLATES OF RAMACHANDRA: SAKA 1232.
207
Verse 17 mentions some more victories of Ramachandra. He subjugated in battle the king of Palli, made the king of Kanyakubja bend low, overran the mountain Kailasa, routed the ruler of Mahima, captured forcibly the lord of Sangama and destroyed the ruler of Khota. The Palliraja may have been the chief of some hill tribe like the Bhills or Gonds in the Vindhya mountain. There is no corroboration of Ramachandra's raids on Kanauj and Kailasa, but his other victories do not seem to be improbable. Mahima is probably identical with the place of the same name near Bombay. According to a tradition preserved in some Marathi records, Kōnkan was conquered by Bhima Raja, the son of Ramadēva Rāja of Devagiri. He is said to have made Mähim his capital and divided the kingdom of Konkan into fifteen mahals or groups containing 444 villages. The lord of Sangama, captured by Ramachandra, was probably ruling at Sangamēsvara, about 20 miles north-east of Ratnagiri. Khēța may be Khed, the chief town of the Khēḍ tālukā in the Ratnagiri District. The place dates from early times; for the Khēṭābāra, which was evidently named after it, is mentioned in the Goa grant of Satyasraya Dhruvarāja, dated Saka 5323. These three victories of Ramachandra were probably attained in the same expedition which was mainly directed against the petty chiefs ruling in Southern Kōnkan.
Verse 18 states that Ramachandra drove out the Muhammadans from Varanasi or Benares and built a golden temple there which he dedicated to Sarigapāņi. This plainly implies that he held that holy city for some time. There is nothing improbable in this claim. It was always the cherished ambition of powerful Hindu rulers to save the holy places of North India from devastation and plunder by Muslim invaders, though express statements to that effect are rarely found in their inscriptions. There is, of course, no reference to this occupation of Benares by Ramachandra in Muslim chronicles as there is no allusion to Muslim invasions of the Yadava kingdom in this or any other record of Ramachandra. The present inscription does not state when this invasion of Benares took place; but it must evidently have occurred before 'Ala-ud-din's invasion crippled the power of Ramachandra in A. D. 1294. It was probably carried out some time during the period from A. D. 1285 to 1290 when there was confusion and disorder in the North after the death of Balban and before the establishment of the power of Jalāl-ud-din.
The present inscription is the last record of Ramachandra. It is not known how long he continued to reign after its issue. According to Muslim chronicles a large army from the North under the command of Malik Kāfür and Khvāja Hāji passed through Devagiri in the course of an expedition against Dvarasamudra and Ma'bar towards the end of A. H. 710 (A.D. 1310-11); but Muhammadan historians are not unanimous as to who was then ruling at Devagiri. Barani and following him, Firishta state that when Malik Käfür and Hāji reached Devagiri they found that Rāmadeva was dead. Firishta tells us further that the young prince Sankaradeva was not well-affected to the Muhammadans. On this evidence Ramadeva is believed to have died in A.D. 1309.7 The present record shows, however, that he was ruling till the end of September A.D. 1310 at least and it is doubtful if he was succeeded by Sankaragana before the end of that year; for Khusrū
1 [There is a Pallidesa mentioned in the Dohad Stone inscription of Mahamuda (Begarha), above, Vol. XXIV, pp. 212 ff. It is also the ancient name of Palniḍ in Guntur District.-Ed.]
Bomb. Gaz., Vol. I, pt. ii, p. 27.
J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. X, p. 348.
In the inscriptions of the Gahaḍvalas, for instance, Chandradeva is described as the protector of the holy places Käsi, Kusika, Uttarakōsala and Indrasthana. Ind. Ant., Vol. XV, p. 7 and Vol. XVIII, p. 16.
See Ta'rikh-i-Firuz Shahi (Elliot's History of India, Vol. III, p. 203).
See Firishta's History tr. by Briggs, Vol. I, p. 373.
7 Bhandarkar, Early History of the Deccan, Bomb. Gaz., Vol. I, pt. ii p. 51
