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No. 36-NOTE ON KURUD PLAIES OF NARENDRA, YEAR 24
D. C. SIBUAR, OOTACAMUND
The Kurud copper-plate inscription has been edited by Dr. M. G. Dikshit in the foregoing pages (pp. 263ff.). He has, however, failed to grasp what appears to be the most important historical information supplied by the epigraph.
The record purports to say that the village of Kēbavaka was originally granted by the Para. mabhattāraka-päda, while he had been taking a bath in the waters of the Gangå (Gangāyānh majjanath kurvvadbhih), in favour of the Brāhmaṇa Bhasrutasvåmin or Bhadrutasvämin by means of a charter written on palm leaves, but that, as a result of that document being destroyed by a conflagration in the house of the doneo, Mahārāja Narendra, son of Sarabha, re-granted the village from his camp at Tilakēsvara in favour of the original donee's son Sankhasvāmin for the merit of the Paramabhaťāraka-päda, since it was established by official investigation (adhikaran-dvadha ranaya) that the village was continuously in the possession of the Brāhmaṇas. As Narendra's father Sarabha is apparently identical with the homonymous maternal grandfather of Güparaja who died in fighting on behalf of the Gupta monarch Bhånugupta at Eran in the Saugor District of Madhya Pradesh in the Gupta year 191-510 A.D., Sarabha and his son Narēndra may be roughly assigned respectively to the last quarter of the fifth and the first quarter of the sixth century A.D. If Narēndra re-granted the village in question to Sankhasvāmin about the first quarter of the sixth century, the latter's father (apparently dead at the time of the present charter) should have originally received it from the Paramabhaffäraka-päda about quarter of a century earlier, i.e. sometime about the last quarter of the fifth century.
Dr. Dikshit identifies the Parannabhaftāraka-päda, who originally made the grant, with Maharaja Narendra's father. This is, however, not supported by the language of the insoription, the word 'father' being conspiouous by its absence from the context. Moreover the ParamabhaHaraka-pāda seems to have had his headquarters in the neighbourhood of the river Ganga far away from the Raipur District where Narondra and apparently also his father Sarabha were ruling. Then again the imperial title Paramabhattaraka, along with Mahārājādhiraja Paramētvara, is known to have been popularised by the Imperial Guptas since the fourth century A.D.' and it is impossible to believe in the present state of our knowledge that Maharaja Narendra's father Sarabha enioved the tičle Paramabhaftāraka (and presumably also Mahārājādhiraja Paramë dvara), side by side with the Imperial Guptas, about the end of the fifth century. We know that Sarabha's daughter's son Goparāja was a feudatory of the Guptas and it seems quite likely that Sarabha himself also owed allegiance to the same imperial house. Since the Guptas had their capital at Pataliputra on the Gargă, the grant being made by the Paramabhaffäraka-pāda while taking a bath in the holy waters of that river is easily explained. As the Gupta power was fast declining since the closing years of the fifth century, it is intelligible how Sarabha's son Mahārāja Narēndra, ruling considerably away from the centre of the Gupta empire, issued his charters as an independert monarch without referring to his allegiance to the Gupta emperor. But his respectful mention of the Paramabhattaraka-päda, to whom Narenda's family must have owed complete allegiance originally, shows that he still considered himself, howsoever nominally, a subordinate of the Imperial Guptas. It has to be noted that Narēndra confirmed the earlier grant for the merit of the Paramabhattaraka-pida and not of himself or of his parents. It has, however, also to be noticed that he was powerful enough not to describe himself even vaguely as Paramabhaffaraka-pod-dnudhyäta like such nominal
1011, Vol. III, pp. 92 ff. 8. IHQ. Vol. XXII, pp. 64-68 ; Vol. XXIV, pp. 76-77.
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