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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXVI
the ruler of Gangapați or Gangavadi and gave his kingdom to Bhutarya (or Bütuga) and that he defeated and reduced to a sad condition the Pallava Anniga. Bhutarya and Anniga are known from other records also as the rulers of Gangavadi and Nolambaväḍi respectively. They were contemporaries of Amoghavarsha III. Gangavadi and Nolambavadi were thus included in the Rashtrakuta Empire during the time of Amoghavarsha III, though they were actually governed by his feudatories. These were evidently two of the three countries implied in v. 10. The third country must of course have been Kuntala, the home-province of the Rashtrakutas.
Krishna III who succeeded Amoghavarsha III is eulogised in five verses (11-15), but the description is merely conventional. He is said to have made several new grants and restored old ones and to have overthrown four kinds of feudatories. The genealogy of Rashtrakuta rulers stops with Krishna III, during whose time the present grant was evidently made.
With verse 16 begins the description of the Silahara dynasty. The dynastic name appears here in the form Silāra. Verse 17 mentions the Vidyadhara Jimutavahana, the son of Jimütakētu, who offered his body to save serpents. His descendants assumed the form of Silāra in order to give protection to the ocean when it was harrassed by the arrow of (Jamadagnya, i.e., Parasurama)". Since then the princes of this dynasty came to be known as Sīlāras. This is a novel interpretation of the dynastic name which, so far as we know, occurs nowhere else. The text does not make clear what is meant by Silära and no Sanskrit dictionary gives this word. The dynastic name sometimes appears in the form Silahara and is then usually taken to mean 'food on a rock' with reference to the story of the Vidyadhara Jimütavahana who sat on a rock to serve as foca to Garuda.
Verses 20-25 name the following Silahara princes: Kapardin (I); his son Pulaśakti; his son Kapardin (II); his son Vappuvana; his son Jhanjha; his younger brother Gōggi; his son Vajjada (I); and finally, his younger brother Chhadvaya (or Chhadvaideva), the donor of the present plates. The description of all these princes is quite conventional and altogether devoid of historical interest. About Chhadvaideva we are told that he bore the title Mahāsāmanta and attained the right to the five great (musical) sounds.
The importance of the present inscription lies in this that it has brought to notice a prince of the Silahara dynasty who was not known from any other source. The Bhadana plates dated Saka 919, which were issued by Vajjaḍa I's son Aparajita, give the same genealogy as the record before us, but they omit the name of Chhadvaideva. This prince is not again mentioned in any of the numerous later records of the Silaha.as. The reason for this omission is not clear. It cannot be said that Chhadvaidev a's name was omitted because he was a collateral; for, as Banerji has already pointed out, Silahāra records invariably mention Jhanjha, though his progeny did not reign, and he was succeeded by his brother Gōggi. Another instance is that of Arikesarin
1 See e. g., above, Vol. IV, p. 351, and Vol. X, pp. 54 ff.
The Karhad plates of Krishna III also mention four kinds of feudatories, but they are said to have received different kinds of treatment at his hands. See above, Vol. IV, p. 285. In verse 15 of the present inscription there is an interesting comparison of Krishna III with a physician, based on a play on the words mandalin, narendra, etc., but the verse is not completely legible.
The Brahmanda Purana (III, 57, vv. 47 ff) graphically describes the consternation in the ocean caused by Parasurama's arrow. It further states that Varuna, the lord of the ocean, ultimately submitted to Parafurăma and withdrew the ocean from the Sürpäraka-kshetra. The Purana does not of course make any mention of the Silāras.
Banerji's statement that the name of Vajjadadeva is omitted in the genealogy of the Silära family in the second plate is not correct; for his name occurs in the second half of verse 24, though in a corrupt form.
