________________
SANSKRIT AND OLD CANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
OCTOBER, 1878.]
copper-plate grants in general,-it falls through, because the necessity ceases if we interpret the date as Saka 394, and because the assumption is not warranted by facts.
That Buddha varmâ is to be identified with Ranaråga, or that he and Vijayaraja are to be foisted into the direct line of descent before Ranarà ga and Pulikê si I., I do not believe for a moment. If Buddhavarma and Ranaråga were closely connected at all, they were brothers. As to the identity of the two Jayasimhas,-I am strongly inclined in favour of it, though I would not speak with absolute conviction at present. On the one hand, the difference in their dates is somewhat against the hypothesis that Vijay arâja, or Vijayavarma, and Pulikêsî I., were of one generation, being grandsons of one and the same Jayasimha. On the other hand, the present grant is from the north; and there are the facts that the Chalukyas of the south always represent themselves as having come originally from the north, and that they commence their genealogy with a Jayasimha, as does the king for whom the present inscription was composed. And the characters of this grant connect it palæographically very closely with the southern grants.
Now, except in the preamble of the grant of Rajaraja II., of which, I trust, I have said quite enough above, it is nowhere stated that Jayasimha I. of the Chalukyas of the south, or his son, Ranarâ g a, did actually rule in, or even did invade, the south. And the negative evidence is opposed to any such supposition. For, the Aihole tablet and the Miraj plates,the two authentic sources of information for this period, do not speak of any of the royal families of the south, the Kadambas, the Pallavas, the Gangas, the Mauryas, and the N a la s, as having been conquered by Jayasimha I., or by Ranaråga; nor does even the forged grant of Pulikêśi I. And I know of no other inscription which takes the genealogy back beyond Pulikêéi I.; which fact suggests the inference that he, the con
I have spoken of the Miraj plates at p. 103 above.. I have now found that this is the identical copper-plate grant from which the genealogy of the Yewûr tablet is taken, down to the notice of Jayasimha-Jagadékamalla. Accord ingly, for that part of the genealogy, the Miraj plates are entitled to be quoted in preference to the Yewûr tablet. I shall shortly give a full account of these plates and the tablet combined.
247
queror of Vâ tâpi or Bâdâmi, came subsequently to be looked upon as the real founder of the dynasty. Further, on reconsidering the verse that describes Pulikê si I. in 1. 3 of the Aihole inscription, I consider that the epithet śrit-éndu-lántiḥ applied to him there, and contrasted by the word api with the statement ayasid-Vátúpi - puri- vadhú - varatám, indicates that, before he acquired V â tâ pi1o, he had a capital named Indukânti, which must be looked for somewhere in the north. Finally, after the present grant of Vijayaraja, we have no mention of any Chalukyas in the north until we come to the Chaulukyas of Anhilwâd, the accession of the first of whom, Mûlarâja I., is placed by Dr. Bühler at A.D. 941-2, though he speaks also of an ancestor of his, named B hû pati, who is said to have been reigning in A.D. 695-6.
Taking all these indications together, the conclusion at which I arrive is that, at the death of Vijayaraja, or possibly by an invasion of his kingdom which resulted in his defeat and death in battle, the power of the Chalukyas in the north was subverted, and the family expelled, by the Gûrjar a kings, or by the kings of Vala bhi, the other most powerful rulers of those parts; that his cousin, Pulikêsî I., was the only surviving representative of the family; and that, in his flight, directing his course to the south, Pulikêsî I. was attended by a band of adherents sufficiently numerous and strong to enable him to invade, and conquer a part of, the dominions of probably the Palla va king", and, by wresting the city of Vâtâpi from them, to establish for himself a new seat of government there. Or, taking into consideration also the close resemblance of the style of this grant of Vijayaraja to the style of the grants of Dadda II., as noticed above and in the notes to the Text below, it is even possible that the Chalukyas were originally feudatories of the Gurjara kings, but, in the person of Pulikêsî I, threw off that yoke, and, emigrating to the south, established an independent sovereignty of
10 Lit., went to the condition of being the bridegroom of the bride which was the city of Vitipi."
This fact is nowhere expressly stated. But I discovered at Bâdâmi itself a rock inscription, unfortunately very fragmentary, but of early though uncertain date, which mentions Vitfpi, and, also "the Pallava, the foremost of kings"-kshitibhujam-agresorah Pallavah. I have little doubt that Vâtapi was originally a Pallava capital.
