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No. 26]
THREE INSCRIPTIONS FROM VALGUDAR vishaya in the above bhukti was hitherto impossible ; but now it can safely be said that it was the area round the present village of Valgūdar in the western part of the Monghyr District. It is possible further to suggest that the Ksimilā vishaya was bounded in the east by a vishaya with its headquarters at Mudgagiri (i.e., Monghyr) and in the west by another with its headquarters at Nagara or Pāțaliputra (near Pāțnā)."
The second of the three inscriptions records that the image of the Devi, on which it is incised, was the deva-dharma of a person whose name appears to be Nșikatta. The first line of the record shows that the image was installed at the adhishthanı (city) of Krimila. Three letters appearing to read gausavā (or gausēvā?) follow the reference to the city, although it is difficult to say whether some other aksharas after these three had been originally engraved but were later broken away. As it stands, the inscription may suggest that the name of the Devi was Gausavā or Gausēvā. Of course, no goddess of such a name is known to us; but, as has been suggested above, this popular deity was apparently worshipped in different localities under various local names. It may, however, also be suggested that these three letters for.n the first part of the name read at the beginning of the next line or that they, together with some following aksharas now lost, formed an adjective qualifying the person named Nộikatta.
Inscription No. 3 says that, on the eleventh day of the month of Jyaishtha in the 18th regnal year of king Madanapāla, corresponding to Saka 1083, an image of the god Nārāyana was installed at Krimila by two Paramavaishnava brothers who appear to have been named Abhi and Inda (Indra?). They were the brothers of Bhatta-sri-Suki(ksi)trima and sons of Bhatta-Pandita-sriVyāya (Vyāsa?). Now the chief interest of this inscription lies in its dating both in the Saka era and in the regnal reckoning of the Pāla king. It is well known that, of the numerous epigraphic records of the time of the Påla emperors, only two were so long known to have been dated according to any era, while all others are only dated in the regnal years of particular kings. Thus there is absolutely no unanimity among scholars in regard to the dates of accession of the kings in question. The first of the two Pāla records dated according to any era is the Sárnáth inscription of the time of Mahīpāla I dated in Vikrama Samvat 1083 (1026 A. C.); but the record is not simultaneously dated in the king's regnal reckoning and does not therefore offer any help in determining the initial year of the reign of Mahīpāla I. The second of the two records, referred to above, is the Gayā inscription of Govindapāla, whose relationship with the known monarchs of the Pala family could not be determined. This epigraph is dated in the Vikrama year 1232 1175 A, C), styled Vikärin according to the Northern Cycle of Jupiter, as well as in the 14th year of the gata-rajya of Govindapāla. The reference is, however, not to the pravardhamāna-vijaya-rājya (i.e., the increasingly victorious reign) of the king as is expected in such cases, but to his gata-rājya, i.e., his sovereignty that was on the date in question a thing of the past. Although it appears quite clear from the date of this inscription that Govinda päla ascended the throne in Vikrama Samvat
1 The Krimila vishaya is also mentioned in the legend on several Nalanda seals. See ibid., pp. 34, 54. The village of Kavāla, known from the seals to have belonged to the said vishaya, may possibly be identical, as suggested to me by Mr. A. Ghosh, with the present Kawali, 14 miles south-west of Valgudar. The spurious Nālandå plate of Samudragupta (cf. Select Inscriptions, Vol. I, pp. 262-64) records the grant of two villages one of which was situated in the Krimila vishaya. Even if this spurious record, forged a few centuries after the middle of the fourth century when Samudragupta ruled, may not prove the existence of the vishaya in the Gupta age, it no doubt shows that the vishaya and therefore the city which gave the vishaya its name ,existed before the rise of the Palas. The Naulágarh image inscription (Ganesh Dutta College Bulletin, No. 1, by R.K. Chowdhary, pp. 1-16) of the 24th regual year of Vigraha pāla II or III mentions a vintner of Krimila.
* Bhandarkar, List, No. 114.
• Bhandarkar, op. cit., No. 370. The date is given as Samvat 1232 Vikari-samvatsart Gri-Govindapaladina. gata-rajye chaturddaba-san vatsard. The date corresponds to the 22nd September, 1175 A.C.
