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.EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXVIII
The Bhimanagarigarh plate is usually assigned to king Ranastambha-Kulastambha. It represents the king as the lord of the whole Gōndrama with Sankhajōți forming the borderland of his kingdom. This description is also found in the two Puri plates published by M. M. Chakravarti. Unfortunately the text of the Puri records is extremely corrupt. The Bhimanagarigarh plate represents Mahārāja Ranastambha as the atmaja (line 10) of Vikramaditya. The word suta (line 12) again used before the following mention of Kulastambha may suggest that the record in question belongs not to Ranastambha-Kulastambha but actually to a Kulastambha who was the son of Ranastambha.
Another son of Rapastambha alias Kulastambha was Jayastambha of the three plates3 discovered at Dhenkanal. In one of these records Jayastambha is called Mahārājādhirāja and samadhigata-pañcha-mahāśabda which together appear to be a combination of feudatory and imperial titles. In the same record, Jayastambha is also called "lord of the whole Gōndrama" and is represented as the son of Ranastambha (i.e., Ranastambha-Kulastambha) and as the grandson of Kulastambha (apparently a mistake for Kalahastambha alias Vikramaditya). In the second of the Dhenkanal plates, Jayastambha is called a Mahārāja and is represented as the son of Nidayastambha which seems to be another name of Ranastambha-Kulastambha. The third plate of Jayastambha calls the king both samadhigata-pañcha-mahāśabda and paramabha! ṭāraka. It represents king Jayastambha as the son of Alanastambha, the grandson of Kanadastambha (undoubtedly a mistake for Kalahastambha) alias Vikramaditya, and the great-grandson of Kanchanastambha. Thus Jayastambha's father seems to have enjoyed no less than four names, viz., Ranastambha, Kulastambha, Nidayastambha and Alanastambha. According to the charter under discussion, Jayastambha was succeeded by his son Kulastambha who ruled at least up to his fourth regnal year. Nothing is known about the Sulkis after this ruler. Probably they were extirpated or completely subjugated by the Bhauma-Karas not long after the rule of the issuer of our plate. That the semi-independent rule of the Sulkis from Ranastambha-Kulastambha to his grandson Kulastambha, who issued the present charter, did not last for more than about half a century is indicated by the fact that the same person seems to be the writer of the Dhenkanal plate of Ranastambha dated year 103 and of the charter of Kulastambha under discussion. The Bhogin Kalyāṇadeva who wrote the said grant of Ranastambha is very probably the same as the Bhogin Kalyāņa mentioned in line 31 of our record as its writer.
The Sulkis of Orissa are probably mentioned in the Häräha inscription of Maukhari Iśānavarman of Bihar and the U. P., dated in Vikrama Samvat 611 (A. D. 554). If this suggestion is to be accepted, it has to be assumed that the Sulkis were ruling in Orissa or its neighbourhood at a much earlier date than that suggested by the inscriptions of the family discussed above. M. M. Chakravarti believed that Sulki is but a variant of the family name Chalukya and that the Sulkis of Orissa represented a branch of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty of the Andhra country. But this theory seems to be rightly challenged by others who are inclined to associate the Sulkis of Orissa with a people called Sukli that are still inhabiting parts of the Midnapur District in South
1 Bhandarkar, op. cit., No. 1698; JBORS., Vol. II, pp. 401-3. The word joți (modern jor in the dialect of S. W. Bengal and jöțika of the Gandatakhamälä, p. 15, etc.) means a canal or small stream. Misra identifies Sankhajott with the Sankha river in the Sundargarh region of Orissa.
JASB., Vol. LXIV, 1895, Part I, pp. 123-27. Only one of these two records is recognised in Bhandarkar's List, No. 1695, the other being inadvertently omitted. The suggestion that the first of these two records mentions one Kachchhadeva is wrong as the reading intended is known from other records to be "kat sa eva (or deva). Cf. line 10 of the record under discussion. Gondrama is now roughly taken to mean the same as Oriya Gadajāta (above, Vol. XXVI, p. 77), although the real meaning of the word is uncertain.
Bhandarkar, op. cit., Nos. 1699-1701; JBORS., Vol. II, pp. 406-17.
H. C. Ray, Dynastic History of Northern India, Vol. I, p. 438. Op. cit., p. 124.
