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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXXIII
'Having become irresistible like the Vindhya mountain and having exterminated a Naga [king] (Phanin) of Varadātaṭa, [Dēvarakshita] became well-known as a store-house of fame '.1
From the mention of the river Varada in the description of Devarakshita, who was a minister of the Panduvamsi king Nannarāja, the editors have conjectured that Nannaraja's dominions included the area about the Chanda District. They further say that this inference is supported by the inscription from Bhandak situated on the bank of the Wardha in the Chanda District, which describes Bhavadova Ranakesarin as having restored a derelict Buddhist temple originally built by Suryaghosha, an ancient king of that area. This conjecture also is equally baseless. There is not an iota of evidence to show that the Panduvamsi kings were ever ruling over the Chanda District, or, for the matter of that, over any part of Vidarbha. The inscription of Bhavadeva Raṇakēsarin did not originally belong to Bhandak. Cunningham, who had noticed the inscription in the Nagpur Museum, conjectured that it must have come from Bhandak, because he was told at Bhandak that 'an inscription on a long red slab had been taken to Nagpur during the time of the Rājā about 40 or 50 years previously by Wilkinson Saheb." As the inscription of Bhavadēva Raṇakesrin records the restoration of a Buddhist temple and as there are extensive Buddhist remains at Bhandak, Cunningham conjectured that the inscription must have been brought from that place. The Nagpur Museum has no accurate information about the provenance of several stone records which were brought there from time to time from various places in the former Central Provinces and Berar. There was evidently no mention of Bhandak as the provenance of the inscription in the records of the Museum; for Kielhorn, who has edited it in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, was informed that it had been brought there from Ratanpur. I discussed this question in detail in my article on the Mallar plates of Sivagupta and showed that the inscription must have been found somewhere in Chhattisgarh. My conjecture later received confirmation from a statement of Vinayakarao Aurangabadkar, who was deputed by Jenkins, Resident at Nagpur, to search for and report on the inscriptions in Chhattisgarh. In my article on the Somavaṁśī kings of Southern Kosala published in this journal several years ago, I drew attention to the statements in Aurangabadkar's report, an extract of which had been supplied to me by my friend Dr. Y. K. Deshpande who found it deposited in the India Office Library, London. As I pointed out at the time, Aurangabadkar states that the slab containing the inscription of Bhavadeva was affixed to a large temple at Arang. He gives a transcript and a short description of the contents of this record which leave no doubt about its identity'. Dikshit and Sircar are not inclined to believe the testimony of Aurangabadkar. They say, 'Unfortunately, even if an inscription of the Panduvamsis existed at Arang, its identification with the Bhandak epigraph cannot be established. It is doubtful if any importance can at all be attached to the alleged testimony of Aurangabadkar especially when the evidence of Cunningham and Stevenson seems to point to Bhandak as the provenance of the record'. As this matter is of considerable importance for the history of the Panduvaṁsi dynasty, I propose to examine this criticism in some detail.
At the instance of Jenkins, Aurangabadkar visited several places in Chhattisgarh and submitted a report in Mōḍi characters which is still preserved in the India Office Library (MSS., Marathi D,
1 Besides, the next stanza (verse 8) states that Devarakshita obtained from king Nannaraja a number of vishayas or districts. Verse 7 is, therefore, probably devoted to the adecription of his exploits.
Above, Vol. XXXI, p 34.
ASI, Vol. IX, p. 127.
JRAS, 1905, p. 618. Above, Vol. XXIII, pp. 116 f.
Ibid., Vol. XXVI.p.227 note 2.
