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THE MAHAVALI DYNASTY.
FEBRUARY, 1881.]
whom Sir William Jones would identify with Belus, it is needless to state plays an important part in Hindu mythology. He was the powerful Asura emperor on account of whom Vishnu assumed the Vâmana avatâra, the fifth or Dwarf incarnation. The story as related in the Ramayana and the Bhagavata Purána is well known and need not be repeated here.
Of the Ma hâvali-kula I have met with only one single mention. This is in an inscription of the beginning of the 7th century, obtained by Sir Walter Elliot, from which it appears that the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I. conquered the chief of the Mahâm alla kula, besides by the capture of Kanchi subjecting the Pallava king Jayatesvara Pota Raja. "From these facts it may be inferred," says Sir Walter, "that the rulers of Mamallapura were in a state of independence in the 6th and beginning of the 7th centuries." The present inscriptions not only support this view, but, for reasons to be further stated, make it likely that from the 2nd century the Mahava li line ruled the whole tract of country through which the river Pâlâr flows, from its soarce near Srinivaspura, where these stones were found, past Kânchi to Mahabalipur near its mouth.
The inscription just referred to has also been published by Mr. Fleet, but by translating Mahámalla kula as "family of mighty wrestlers," Rája Malla as "Royal Wrestler," and Pota Raja as "sea king (!) or king of ships" he has missed the significance of the allusions, and states that he does not know who are referred to.
As regards other names in this inscription which he is unable to identify, I may point out that Sri Vallabha was a Ganga king who gained a great victory over the Pallava king, in which the latter lost his life." This must have been the Narasimha here mentioned, the Narasimha Pota Varmma of the inscription published by me in Ind. Ant. vol. VIII, p. 23. Pota Varmma is a form of Buddha Varmma.
And here, as the phrase was first met with in
Muir's Or. Sans. Terts, vol. IV, p. 133ff. Carr's Bev. Pag. p. 127.
Another form of the name, which also appears in that of the city as M&mallaipuram. [This or Mamalaippuram is doubtless the correct form. Mahabalipuram has been made popular in Southey's Curse of Kehama, but is an English corruption: the natives call their village Mavala
37
the same inscription, I may notice the objection which Mr. Fleet makes to my rendering of avanipati-tritay-ántaritám-sva-guro-śriyam-atmasát-krityja by "making his own the wealth his father had won, together with that inherited for three generations," proposing to read "having acquired for himself the regal splendour of his father, which had been interrupted by a confederacy of three kings." The discrepancy between the two translations rests upon the meaning attached to "tritay-ántaritám." Does this only signify "interrupted by a confederacy of three (kings)" so as to exclude entirely the rendering "transmitted by a succession of three (kings)"? I believe I am right in saying that, so far as the phrase goes, it may be interpreted in either way. We must be guided therefore by other evidence as to which was intended in the original.
The authority for the alleged "confederacy of three kings" is so slight that Mr. Fleet "would suggest the probability of Amara and Adityavarma being really not of the Châluky a family at all, but two of the three confederate kings." Now, so far as the hypothesis rests upon this supposition, I think it is disproved by the inscription published by me in Ind. Ant. vol. VIII, p. 96, which is a grant by Ambera (i.e. Amara), "the dear son of Saty âś raya, of the Chaluky a family." Again, a further reference is made to the three kings in line 17, where the religious endowments are said to have been lost or ruined tasmin-rajya-traye(na), "by those three reigns," which seems to me something different from the (necessarily single and combined) reign of a confederacy of three kings. Nor can the reference be to Trairajya Pallava, unless one king can be said to have three reigns or form a triad in himself. There is thus no evidence for the "confederacy of three kings," and the statements made are inconsistent with the hypothesis; we may also infer from the details which are given that further particulars would certainly have been mentioned had so important a combination of hostile kings been formed and
overcome.
varam. See Carr's Seven Pagodas, p. 66, Burnell's S. Ind. Palæog. p. 35.-ED.]
• Ind. Ant. vol. VI, p. 76.
7 See Ganga inscription published by me in Madras Journal for 1878.
Ind. Ant. vol. IX, p. 126.
