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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXX
be a mistake for Kaustubhebvarya. The queen-mother's name may thus have been Kaustubhêévari. But the king's name is more indifferently written and looks like Söbhönnā- or Söbhinna raja which, however, may not be its correct from.
The goddess Stambhoévarf is known to have been the family deity of the Sulkis who ruled over the Dhenkanal area of Orissa about the tenth century A.D. If the Sulkis have to be identified with the Salikas mentioned in the Haraha inscription, they were probably ruling in Orissa as early as the sixth century A. D. But we do not know if any relation existed between the Sulkis and Tushtikara's family. The aboriginal people of Orissa worship wooden pillars posted at the corner of their villages. This aboriginal deity was gradually adopted by the orthodox Hindus who gave her the name Stambhesvart (now usually called Khambaévari). There are a few temples of this goddess in differnt parts of Orissa."
Tushtikara and Sobhōnnā or Sōbhinnä are not known from any other source. Their territory apparently comprised the district round the cities of Tarabhramaraka and Parvvatadväraka in the present Kalahandi region of Orissa. The fact that the gift land has been mentioned in the document without any specification regarding its location in a district may suggest that Tushtikara ruled over a small area.
It is difficult to determine what relations the royal family represented by Tushṭikära and Sobhōnna or Sobhinnä had with the Panduvamál king of South Kosala. We cannot possibly think that Tushtikara's family owed allegiance to the Panduvaméis but began to rule semi-independently on the latter's decline. There is no influence of Panḍuvaméi charters on the style of Tushtikara's grant. Moreover the decline of the Panduvamáis appears to have been brought about by the expedition against South Kosala led by the early Chalukya king Pulakesin II (circa 610-42 A.D.) of Badami, some time before 634 A.D., probably during the reign of Sivagupta (or Mahasivagupta) Bälärjuna who ruled at least for about 57 years and was the last important ruler of the Panduvamsa. The palaeography of the inscription under discussion, as already indicated above, seems to be much earlier than the middle of the seventh century.
The inscription mentions the following geographical names: (1) Tarabhramaraka, (2) Prastara-vātaka, and (3) Parvvatadväraka. Of these Tarabhramaraka seems to be no other than the present village of Tala-Bhamara, about two miles to the south of Belkhandi-Rajapadar, on the bank of the Utei, a tributary of the Tel. Parvvatadvaraka, which seems to have been situated on a pass between two hills, cannot be identified. The identification of the locality called Prastaravātaka is also uncertain.
TEXTS
First Plate, First Side
1 Svi(sva)sti [*] Parvvatadvarakad-bha[ga]'vatya Stasbhēniryya pada-bha[kta]
1 Cf. above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 111-12.
Above, Vol. XIV, pp. 115 ff.; Bhandarkar's List, No. 10.
There is a Stambhéévart temple at Aska in the Ganjam District (JKHRS, Vol. II, p. 110). In the centre of the town of Sonpur, there is a pillar known as Stambheśvarl and a temple is also attributed to her (Mazumdar, Orissa in the Making, p. 107). Mazumdar gives an interesting account of the worship of this deity in modern Orissa. For the goddess Stambhëévari, see also JPASB, Vol. VII, pp. 443 ff.
JKHRS, Vol. II, p. 109.
From the original plates.
The akshara pa had been originally engraved near rova but was later erased and incised near sti. "The letter ga has a curious from.
[Read Stambhebvaryah. Note that, in this endorsement, t has sometimes a looped form differing little from
that of n.
