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No. 24)
BAMHANI PLATES OF PANDAVA KING BHARATABALA ; YEAR 2
137
It is emphasised that she came of a divine family. Another point on which seemingly stress is laid is this that she is described to be the only wife of Bharatabala, which tends to show that the latter was in favour of monogamy, whereas his forefathers practised polygamy! If the expression to the effect that Lokaprakasa was blessed with grandsons and great-grandsons is to be taken As a statement of facts, rather than in the sense of a benediction which seems to be the case, we will have to assume that Bharatabala came to the throne in a very advanced age so as to become a great-grandfather already in the second year of his reign, in which the present charter of his is dated.
The contents of the eleventh stanza, as has been indicated above, are ambiguous. In ftre natural sequence, it speaks of the royal donor Bharatabala, represented, as an emperor (sāruribhauma) honoured by his vassals, but, at the same time, it contains a veiled reference to his overlord, Narondra, that is the Vakātaka monarch Naröndrasēna. There is obviously a pun upon the word narendra which, when construed with Bharatabala, means 'king', while otherwise it stands for the personal name of the Vākāțaka sovereign concerned. There is another word in the verse', which has likewise double meaning, and that is saumya. It qualifies varida. When it refers to Bharatabala's varsa, it means "lunar' and when it adverts to Narēndra sēna's vainsa, it simply denotes' auspicious'. The implication is quite obvious. The Pandavas, the avowed ancestors of Bharatabala, belonged to the Lunar race, while the Vākāțakas were Brāhmaṇas and as such their family could aptly be described as 'auspicious'.
The hidden reference as disclosed above might have escaped detection but for a counter. referenoe met with elsewhere. And it is here that the importance of the Bālāghāt plates of Prithivishēna II comes in. In this record the Vākātaka monarch Narēndrasēna, the father of Prithivishina II, is described to be as one whose commands were honoured or obeyed by the lords of Kõsalā. Mēkala and Mälava 'Kosalā-Mēkalā Mälav-ādhimay-abhyarchchita-sāsana. This has generally been taken to signify that Narēndrasēna exercised suzerainty over the rulers of the three countries referred to. So far as Mēkalā is concerned, the said claim has been admitted, though covertly, by the donor of the present charter himself. It may, however, be questioned that, if Bharatabala indeed owed allegiance to Narēndrasēna, why he should express is in equivocal terms, and how the sovereign could tolerate that. The very fact that it has been so indicates that the overlordship was more in name only, that Mēkalā under the kingship of Bharatabala was an internally autonomous state, and that the prestige of its king was not much inferior to that of his suzerain or that both of them were perhaps more or less on friendly terms. It looks as if Bharatabala was not bound to acknowledge Narēndrasēna's overlordship in the charter issued by him, but that it was out of courtesy that he did so and that wilfully in an indirect manner. A somewhat analogous instance, where a feudatory covertly alludes to his overlord, is furnished by the Ghumli plates of the Saindhava chiefs, of whom Krishnarāja II and his brother Jāika I refer in like manner to their sovereign, the Pratihāra emperor Rāmabhadra, who fourished in the first half of the ninth century.
Mahamahopadhyâya V. V. Mirashi, who also had occasion to read this article in its proof stage, opines that the expression ekaina, qualifying Lokaprakākā, perhaps means, anamanya matchless. There may not bunny intention to refer to her husband's monogamy.
1 Above, Vol. IX, p. 271, text 11, 27-28. The citation gives the amended text. The late Dr. K. P. Jayaswai has rightly pointed out that Prof. Kielhorn's correction of Kõsala and Mēkala into Könula and Mekula is not called for.. K. P. Jayaswal, History of India 150 A. D. to 350 A. D., p. 84, n. 1. The form Kõsala is met with in certain other insoriptions as well; see, for example, above Vol. XXIII, p. 251, text I. 13.
It has been obeerved that the Våkåtakas do not seem to have insisted on their feudatories specifically mentioning their suzerainty in records'. Above, Vol. XXIII, p. 173.
Above Vol. XXVI, pp. 191, 192. The relevant text runs as follows :-Bharata iv=achalad-uchita-samaraanitaHamad, Rama referring to the epic hero of that name as well as to the Pratinära emperor Ramabhadra. The term lobanatha occurring in the concluding verse of the Cuttack Museum plates of Madhavavarman has boull taken to refer to the paramount sovereign to whom Madhavavarman owed allegiance'. Above, Vol. XXIV, p. 150
XVI.1.12
