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No. 20-NOTE ON NESARIKA GRANT OF GOVINDA MI, SAKA 727
D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 21. 7. 1959) Mr. P. L. Gupta has edited above, pp. 123 ff., the Nēsarikā grant issued by the Rāshtrakūta king Govinda III in Saka 727 (805 A.D.). The inscription was previously published by Mr. G. H. Khare in his Sources of the Medieval History of the Dekkan (Marathi), Vol. I, pp. 15-26, and commented on by Dr. R. C. Majumdar and Dr. G. S. Gai in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Letters, Vol. XXII, pp. 133-34 and Vol. XXIV, No. 1. Mr. Khare's transcript at pp. 18-23 of his work contains some lacunae ; but he suggested the readings for those gaps in an appendix at pp. 83-84. Dr. Majumdar, whose attention was drawn to Mr. Khare's transcript by Dr. B.V.. Kolte of the Nagpur Mahavidyalaya, was interested in the reference in the record to king Dharma of Vangāla and suggested the reading of the letters in the gaps of the stanza in question. He did not notice that some of his readings were suggested by Mr. Khare himself in the appendix referred to above, probably because Dr. Kolte did not draw his attention to the latter. This fact was pointed out by Dr. Gai.
The importance of the inscription lies in verses 21-24 which mention the chihnas snatched away by king Govinda III from thirteen different rulers apparently defeated by him. Mr. Gupta has taken them to be the insignia of the particular families, to which the kings in question belonged, as found on the seals attached to their copper-plate grants. But, in regard to two of the thirteen rulers, he offers a different suggestion and thinks that Govinda III took away an image each from the kings of Simhala and Vangala. Dr. Majumdar is right when he says, "Most probably the reference is to royal banners with those emblems, which were surrendered by their owners and carried by Govinda III as trophies of victory or tokens of suzerainty." He concludes, "The fact.... that the kings were forced to surrender what was obviously their lanchhanas or royal insignia seems to imply that Govinda III claimad suzerainty over them". But, as regards king Dharma of Vangala, Dr. Majumdar says, "It is of great importance to note .... that what was taken from Dharmapāla was not the lāñchhana or royal emblem, but the image of a goddess. This seems to put him in a different category." He then comes to the following conclusion : "The present ...... of an image of Bhagavati Tārā.... presumably a Buddhist deity, to Govinda III, a staunch follower of Puranic religion, is also of great interest. But as we know, Amõghavarsha, son of Govinda III, has great leanings towards Jainism. Govinda III might have been attracted to Buddhism by his contact with the Buddhist Pāla ruler, Dharmapala."
Unfortunately the suggestion of Dr. Majumdar and Mr. Gupta that Govinda III took away the royal insignia from most of the defeated kings but an image from a few of them is not supported by the language of the inscription which very clearly refers to the objects taken away from all the thirteen rulers as their chihnas or insignia (verse 24). This has been pointed out by Dr. Gai. The error of both Dr. Majumdar and Mr. Gupta lies in that they have no clear idea about the royal insignia of ancient Indian rulers and fail to distinguish between the crest represented on the seals of the kings and the emblem appearing on their banners. Dr. Majumdar's conclusions based on the said faulty premise are of course equally unwarranted.
1 Even today the emblems on the seal and the flag of the Government of India are not the same, the former being the lion-capital of an Asökan pillar and the latter & Charkhå whoel.
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