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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXVIII day of Ashaḍha of the year 404, i.e., 653 A.C. (404 plus 249) fell on June 1 when there was a solar eclipse visible in India. 1-6-653'A.C. must, therefore, be the date of the grant.
If on the other hand the numerical symbols are taken to denote the year 470 (ie., 719 A.C.), there was no solar eclipse on the new-moon day of the Nija-Ashadha according to either system of reckoning Hindu months. Though there was a solar eclipse on the new-moon day of the intercalary Ashadha of this year, there is no mention of such a month in the grant itself. Moreover, it is well nigh impossible for the same generalissimo and the same writer to have lived under the same king in 406 and 470 which will be the dates for the Bagumra and Käsare grants respectively.
Pippalakheța is the only locality that I can decipher. Some river or rather stream is mentioned to be flowing by the side of the village; but its name cannot be properly deciphered. As the boundaries of Pippalakheța are not specified, it is difficult to identify it.
Though each of these two grants supplies very little direct historical information by itself, the facts supplied by the above-mentioned four grants when pieced together indeed shed much light on some points regarding the history of the Sendraka family referred to in the grants, and it would not be out of place if I say a few words about them.
First, what was the extent of the country which the Sendrakas ruled over? The village granted in the Bagumra record has been rightly identified with Nausari in the Surat District. The place of encampment mentioned in the Nagad plates from which the plates were issued is Kāyāvatāra or modern Karwan near Dabhoi which in itself is twenty miles to the south-east of Baroda. I may, therefore, be not far wrong if I surmise that the power of the Sendrakas had extended upto Baroda at the time of the grant. If my conjecture about Nandipuradvari, the province which included the village granted in the Nagad plates, be correct, it follows that at least the southern half of the present West Khandesh District was under the sway of the Sendrakas at the time of the grant. The places mentioned in the Kalwan plates have not been finally identified as yet, I believe. But if Prof. Mirashi's suggestion about the identification of the places in the grant be accepted as correct, the village granted should be supposed to lie in the north-eastern extremity of the Nasik District. The village granted in the Kāsārē plates should be searched for somewhere in the north-eastern extremity of the Nasik and the south-western extremity of the East Khandesh Districts. For, it is in this part of the country that places bearing the names Pimparkhed, Pimpalwadi-Nikumbha (Pimpalwadi of the Nikumbhas), Alwaḍi (Allavățikā), etc., lie and it is this part which the Nikumbhas who seem to be related to the Sendrakas were ruling over in the eleventh and the twelfth centuries of the Christian era. Thus it is evident that the Sendrakas most probably ruled over the modern Surat and Broach Districts, the southern half of the Baroda State, the West Khandesh District, the south-western part of the East Khandesh and the north-eastern part of the Nasik Districts.
Is there anything to show that the Sendrakas were connected with the Nikumbhas in any way? On the one hand the Bagumra grant begins with a verse in praise of the Sun. The names of the majority of members of the Sendraka family begin with some word meaning the Sun, e.g.,Bhanusakti, Adityaśakti; and Nikumbha was the name of a well-known mythical king belonging to the solar race. On the other hand the Nikumbha inscriptions begin with homage to the solar race and then Rama and Nikumbha belonging to the same race are extolled. Lastly, it is stated in Nikumbha inscriptions that in the family of Nikumbha was born the first ancestor from whom begins the pedigree of the Nikumbha dynasty. In these circumstances it appears that the Nikumbha dynasty was either an off-shoot of the Sendraka family or both of them were descended from a common stock.
