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No. 51]
TWO PLATES FROM KANAS suggest that Bhānudatta's status as a ruler was gradually approaching that of a semi-independent feudatory of an imperial personage.
The four copper platest from Soro in the Balasore District belonging to Sambhuyabas, Somadatta and Bhānudatta, as well as the Balasore plate of Bhānu referred to above, suggest that the Sarēpha or Sarëph-ahāra district (i.e., the region round modern Soro in the Balasore District), said to be in Uttara-Tösali or in the Odra vishaya as well as in Uttara-Tösali, was under the independent king Sambhuyasas of the Mudgala or Maudgalya götra and possibly of the Māna family in the Gupta year 260 (579 A.C.), then under a feudatory ruler named Sõmadatta in his fifteenth regnal year and lastly under Bhanudatta in his fifth regnal year. The village of Vahirvātaka in the Soro district, granted by Somadatta in his fifteenth regnal year to the Brāhmaṇas Dhruvamitrasvāmin and Ārungamitrasvāmin of the Vātsya götra and Väjasanēya charana, was regranted by Bhanudatta in his fifth regnal year to the above two Brāhmaṇas as well as to two others of the same family, viz., Priyamitrasvāmin and Vātamitrasvāmin, apparently on the latter's representation and not long after the date of Somadatta's grant. Sömadatta and Bhānudatta very probably belonged to the same family of the feudatory Dattas who were, however, not subordinate to the ruling dynasty represented by Sambhuyaśas. The two Midnapur plates' show that Dandabhukti in the western part of the Midnapur District of West Bengal was being ruled in the eighth regnal year of Sašańka, king of Gauda, by Mahāpratihāra Subhakirtti, but that the same mandala together with the disa or territory of Utkala was under the rule of the sämanta-mahārāja Sömadatta in the nineteenth regnal year of the same monarch. Thus Somadatta was a feudatory of Saśānka of Gauda who is known to have been ruling in the first quarter of the seventh century at least from 605 to 619 A.C. In 619 A.C. Sasāůka's suzerainty was acknowledged by the Sailodbhavas in the Köngöda country about the eastern fringe of the Ganjam District. This points to the expansion of Gauda rule over both North and South Tõsali. The rule of Sömadatta in Utkala or UttaraTösali as a vassal of Sasanka points to the extirpation of the supremacy of the Mānas at least from that region before the nineteenth regnal year of the Gauda monarch. But the two Soro inscriptions of Sömadatta, unlike the Midnapur plate of his time,are dated in the fifteenth year of his own reign and not in the regnal reckoning of his overlord Saśānka. The same is the case with the charters issued by Bhanudatta who was probably Somadatta's successor in Utkala, Odra-vishaya or UttaraTõsali. The dating of these charters in the regnal reckoning of the feudatories with a rather vague mention of the parama-bhatļāraka or overlord seems to suggest that they were issued after the defeat of Saśānka or his successor at the hands of Harshavardhana of Kanauj and his friend Bhāskaravarman of Kämarupa between 619 and 643 A.C., when the hold of the Gauda emperor on the feudatories must have begun to decline. The Dattas of Uttara-Tõsali, who then became rather nominal feudatories of the emperor of Gauda, appear to have been extirpated by Harshavardhana who led an expedition in Orissa about 643 A.C. and probably put the Bhauma-Kara rulers of Jajpur to power in the above region. Thus after the decline of imperial Gupta rule in Orissa, we find the Vigrahas and Mänas struggling for power with each other before they were swept away by the Gaudas. It is probable that the Vigrahas were ousted by the Mānas who were themselves extirpated by the Gaudas. The defeat of the Gauda monarch by the Kanauj-Kamarûpa confederacy led to the weakening of his hold on Orissa. Harshavardhana, who now considered the Gauda king as one of his subordinate allies, may have subdued Orissa ostensibly on the latter's behalf. But his death in 647 A.C. led to the emergence of the Bhauma-Karas as an imperial power in that country. The rulers on the throne of Karnasuvarna, capital of Gauda, were apparently unable to regain their hold on Orissa.
1 Above, Vol. XXIII, pp. 201-03. * J.R.A.S.B., Lotters, Vol. XI, pp: 7-9; Pravasi (Bengali), B. S. 1350, pp. 291 fr.
3 The later limit may be 637 A,C. About this time, the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tuang visited Eastern India. His accounts appear to suggest that Sabanka was dead and Gauda was humbled before his visit to that rogion.
