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No. 37]
PANDIAPATHAR PLATES OP BHIMASENA, YEAR 89
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king Bhimasēna with the said Ganga house, the dating of his grant in a year of the Bhauma-Kara era connects him with the Bhauma-Kara kings of Guhēsvara-pataka or Guhadēva-pāțaka near modern Jājpur in the Cuttack District. Bhimapura, probably founded by and named after Bhimasēna, seems to have been the capital of the said ruler.
The royal order in respect of the grant was addressed to the Brāhmaṇas, the feudatory chiefs and the people of the district including the Rāshtrakūta (officer in charge of an administrativo unit called räshtra), the Brihadbhögin (big jāgirdārs) and the Bhögin (smaller jāgirdārs) with reference to a district called Kamandula-pätta. The gift village was Kūrmatalā-grāma situated in the said district. The donee was a Brāhmaṇa by name Bhata Päjūni, who was the son of Adityadēva and grandson of Agnisvāmin and belonged to the Käsyapa götra and the Käsyapa, Avatsära and Naidhruva pravaras. That the gift land was granted in favour of Pājūni has been mentioned in two consecutive sentences, the second of which gives the details about his family and ancestry. A passage in line 14 shows that the donee had to pay a kind of rent of seven palas of silver apparently per annum. The inscription thus records a kara-śāsana, several of which have been discussed by us elsewhere. It is interesting to note that, although the grant made was permanent, it is not stated that the gift village was made rent-free.
Lire 17 assigns some of the usual imprecatory stanzas quoted in lines 17-25 to the Dharmafästra and also wrongly to Manaviya, i.e. the Dharma-śāstra of Manu. The date, already discussed above, is quoted in lines 25-26. It is followed by the statements to the effect that the charter was drawn up by Sandhivigrahika (minister for war and peace) Arkadēva and engraved by a person whose name appears to have been Sämantāka. Vagu Vanasirinha endowed the original document with the royal seal. Vagu is no doubt a contraction of Vāgulika or Värgulika indicating the bearer of the king's betel-box.
The importance of the inscription lies in the fact that it reveals the existence of a new king of a new dynasty in Orissa about the tenth century A. D. Several earlier kings of the Nala dy. nasty are known to have ruled in the Chhattisgarh and Bastar regions of Madhya Pradesh. But Bhimasēna of the Ganjam area is the only member of the family so far known to have ruled in Orissa. The use of the Bhauma-Kara era side by side with imperial titles and the absence of the king's father's name in the inscription under study suggest that Bhimasēna was originally ruling over the Khiddiraśpinga district as a feudatory of the Bhauma-Karas and that he succeeded in throwing off the yoke of his overlords and ruled independently for a short time when the present charter was issued. Khiddiraśpinga seems to be identical with Khiddarasingha of the Madras Museum plates of the time of Narēndradhavala who was ruling over the district about the third quarter of the tenth century, i.e. a few decades after Bhimasēna. The Nala family thus seems to have been ousted from the area by the dynasty of the Dhavalas who also appear to have owed allegiance to the Bhauma-Karas.
Among the geographical names mentioned in the inscription, Khiddiraspinga has to be identified with the former Khidishingy Zamindari which had its headquarters at Dhārakota and lay to the south of Bodaguda and to the west of Goomsur. The gift village called Kūrmatala grāma and the district of Kamandula-patta in which it was situated cannot be identified. Bhimapura also cannot be identified, though Rajaguru identifies it with the modern Bhimnagar in Survey of India Sheet No. 74 A 11. The word pāta used to indicate a district reminds us of Oriya danda-pāța found in later records and patta found in many cases elsewhere.
1 See JRAS, 1952, pp. 4 ff. ; above, Vol. XXX, pp. 114-15; Vol. XXXIII, p. 153. • Cf. Bhandarkar's List, Nos. 1497, 1500, 1502.
See above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 13 ff.; The Classical Age, pp. 188 ff.
• See Madras Manual, Vol. III, pp. 269-70 ; Rangachari's List, Vol. I, p. 671, note; Or. Hist. Res. Journ., op. cit., p. 100.
