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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA The importance of the genealogical part of the inscription, discussed above, is that it throws welcome light on the ancestry of the great founder of the Suryavamsi Gajapati family of Orissa. Very little information was so far available on the ancestors of Kapilēsvara. The tradition recorded in the Mädala Panjit and several other works of the type states that, in the early part of his life, Kapili (i.e. Kapilieśvara), & Suryavansi Rāuta, Was & cowherd in the employ of a certain Brāhmaņa and that he was picked up by the last Ganga king (Bhānu IV) and brought up in his palace. He is also stated to have begun his life as a thief. It is said that the god Purushottama-Jagannatha advised the king in a dream to adopt Kapilēsvara as his successor. During the last years of the Ganga king's rule, the Muslims are reported to have invaded the Ganga kingdom and demanded a large ransom. The king sent Kapila to the Muslims for negotiating a settlement, but died shortly afterwards. The Muslims then sent back Kapila to rule the Ganga kingdom. A tradition recorded in the Gangavamsānucharita, however, says that Kapilēsvara was one of the ministers of the Ganga king and that he usurped his master's throne when the latter was away from the capital in connection with a campaign and that the Ganga king after his return from the expedition retired to Gudarikataka where he spent his last days in obscurity. This no doubt seems to be a more sensible account of Kapilēśvara's accession to the throne of Ganga Bhānu IV. As regards Kapilēśvara's ancestry and early career, our inscriptions now show that he was not a mere cowboy receiving the sovereignty over the Ganga empire merely through God's grace but that his ancestors were people of some importance and that his rise to the sovereign status was really from a platform of emminence created not only by his own prowess but also by the exploits of his forbears. His grandfather, bearing his own name, is stated to have been & Nāyaka who was one among the rulers of the solar and lunar races while his father Jāgēśvara, who possessed a large number of elephants, and his elder brother Balarama lost their lives while fighting against their enemies. Thus the great Kapilēsvara was born in a family of ruling chiefs. The tradition describing him as a Rāuta (derived from Sanskrit Raja putra and known to be a title of subordinate rulers), which was scarcely understood so long, can now be appreciated in its proper significance.
That Jāgēšvars was the name of the father of the great Kapilēgvara is suggested also by his own Veligalani grant issued in 1458 A.D. when he was camping on the bank of the Godāvari. Verse 11 of the record in the Sanskrit part speaks of the grant of the village of Veligalani named after himself and his father or parents (sva-pitr-akhyayā)* while the next stanza refers to the grant of Vijayapratāpakapilendra-mahāsasana lying to the east of the united rivers Krishna and Vēnnā. At the coinmencement of the Telugu section beginning on the obverse of the third plate, the gift village is mentioned as Veligalani alias Kapilēsvarapura (Veligalani-Kapilēśvarapurānaku) and the
Op. cit., pp. 42 ff. Similar traditions are found in the Kafakarājavankävalt, Kaifiyat of Jagannatham eto. See Sastri and Venkataramanayya, op. oit., pp. 82 ff.
? Kalingad ééncharitra (Telugu), p. 344.
* An inaccurate notice and an extremely faulty transcript of this fragmentary inscription were published respoctively in A. R. Ep, 1934-38, p. 69 (C. P. No. 17) and Journal of the Bombay Historical Society, Vol. VI, pp. 94 ff. The record is dated in Saka 1380 (vy Oma-ibha-vahni-indu)=Bahudhanya, Vaisakhi (i.e. Vaibakha-sudi 16) corresponding to the 28th April 1458 A.D. The inscription describes Kapilēsvara's military successes in the passage (with correction of the minor scribal errors): Hampa kam pamagat tal-adhika-tara Dhara cha bhar-atura-dudra Kalbariga vimukta-turaga Dhilli cha Bhillf-vrita (lines 1-4, vorse numbered as 7). The same stanza also occurs in the Chiruvroli grant of Hambira (Bharati, November 1941, pp. 614 ff.), verso 6.
• The stanza (after removing small scribal errors) roads : Sak-abda Bahudhanya-namni ganité vyom-Ebha-rahnindubhir: Vaisakhyām Kapilfaro Hariguka. Miduri-almni athitam vith fatyai vidushat batāya cha vasan Godavari. suikata niseshan Veligalani-namakam-adadagnaman sya-pitr-akhyayd || The name of the village has to be road Veliyals for the sake of the metre. The Saka year is indicated by the words vyoma (i.e. O), ibha (i.e. 8), vahni (i.e. 3) and indu (i.e. 1), i.e. 1380.
The stenza (after removing small scribal errors) reads : Krishna-dakahina-vähini vijayate Venna-nadi-sangata tal-prachyar Vijayapratäpaka pilendr-akhyam maha-fasanam | tatr=dbhänti batam cha vimbati-param vipra Vasishfh. opamäs=lad-data Vijayapraldpa-Kapilandro bhak dharm-Ottaral |
