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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. XXVI.
itself in connection with ruling princes as its very formation shows. Having them been applied to vipras or Brähmins, most divine and venerable as they stood in the social rank of the age, it seems to have become a synonym of vipra in course of time, so much so that thereafter the latter came in use to denote royalty in place of the former. Even to-day the application of the term mahärdja, undoubtedly a princely title, to a Brahmin is not unfrequent; and the terms Brāhmana, Vipra, Mahārāja, Mahideva, etc., appear to have become almost synonymous. Thus, vipra may have been used here for Mahideva & ruling prince' who, in the present case, as we Gow from other sourcos, was a Kshatriya of the solar race.
The theory of Kshatriyas having götrae like Vatsa, Vasishtha, etc., has been sufficiently discussed by scholars and it is unnecessary to dilate on it here.
The identification of Ahichchhatrapura which is here stated to have been Sämanta's original Best of government has also been a subject of much discussion. As the original home of the Chahamānas is also called Sapädalaksha in many other inscriptions, some scholars like BhagVänlal Indrajit and Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar are inclined to regard this name as the original Sangkrit form of the modern name Siwālik which is a range of hills below Dehra Dun in the Sahāranpur District, U. P., and thus, according to them, this Ahichchhatra must have been a town in that region in the Upper Ganges-Jumna Valley, from where the dynasty migrated southwards. But the testimony of the two literary works referred to abovo, viz., the Prithvīrāja-vijaya and the Hammira-mahakävya, as also the evidence and the provenance of the earliest inscriptions of the tribe so far discovered, and the identification of most of the places mentioned therein, would suggest the Sākambhari region to have been the cradle of this race. The epigraphic as well as the literary tradition regarding the capture of Delhi, the capital of the Tomaras, by the Chāhamānas as supported by references to occasional conflicts between some of the earlier princes of both the tribes would also indicate the movement of the latter to have been northwards from Sambhar and not towards Sambhar from the north. This Ahichcbhatrapura, therefore, has to be identified with some place in the Sakambhari-pradesa itself where Vishnu (Vasudēva), the predecessor of Sāmanta, had carved out his principality. Rai Bahadur Ojha has identified it with Nāgapura, modern Nageur in the Jodhpur State
After Purnatalla came the princes Jayarāja, Vigrahanpipa, Chandra, Gopēndraka, Darllabha, Gavala, Sabinpipa, Güvāka, Chandana, Vappayarāja, Vimdhyansipati, Sirhbarát, Vigraha, Durllabha (II), Gurdu, Vakpati and his younger brother Viryarāma (v. 18).
Except a bare enumeration of these princes, even the relation in which each succeeding prince stood to his immediate predecessor is not known from this verse for which we may resort to the Prithvirõja-vijaya and the Harsha stone inscription. Thus, the former states that Jayarāja was the von of Samanta, Vigrahanripa and Chandra were respectively the son and grandson of Jayarāja, Gopēndraka was the brother of Chandra, and Durllabha was Chandra's son, i.e., Gopēndraka's tephew. We have no other information from any source regarding these first five princes. Only vague praise is assigned to them in certain literary works due to which some scholars regard them as insignificant. The last prince of this category, viz., Durllabhs or Durlabharāja is stated in the Prith. vj. to have been succeeded by his son Govindaraja, but the present record places Gūvaka after Durllabha. According to Rai Bahadur H. B. Särda, Güvaka and Govindaraja are
1 Bomboy Gazetteer, Vol. I, part I, p. 157 and p. 158, n. 1. • Nagarf-Prachdripf Patrikd, Vol. II, part III, 100 leo J.P. 4.8. B., Vol. XVIII (1928), p. 289 Ray, Dy. His. Vol. II, p. 1062
