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364
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(DECEMBER, 1899.
gennine analogous instances it cannot possibly be accepted, I cannot take it as proved even that the Pannada vishaya was a Ten-thousand district.
As regards the full genealogical and historical purport of this inscription, it will be desirable to quote here exactly what was said about it by Mr. Rice, who brought it to notice in connection with the Kadaba grant of Prabhatavarsba-Gôvinda III., dated Saka-Samvat 735 expired,- of which, by the way, the authenticity is at least very doubtful. He wrote (ante, Vol. XII. p. 13):- "I have, through the kindness of Mr. R. Sewell, seen a grant of the "Pannâta Rajas which must belong to early in the sixth centary. In it their succession is "thus given :-(1) Kaśyappa Râshtravarmma; (2) Nagadatta, his son ; (3) Singa Varmma, "son of the last; (4) his son (not named); (5) Skandavarmma, son of the last ; (6) Ravidatta, “his son. The addition to the first name may point to a suzerainty of the Rashtrakūtas. "But from other inscriptions (ante, Vol. V. p. 140, Vol. VII. p. 175; Mysore Inscriptions, "pp. 292, 295) we know that in the time of Skandavarmma the Pannad kingdom was "annexed to the Ganga dominions by Avinîta who married the king's daughter." Of the two referenoes given by him, only in the first (ante, Vol. V. p. 140, and Mysore Inscriptions, p. 292), and in no other document, can I find the passage which he intends. This is one of the Mallohalli grants; and from it we learn that the son of Konga imahadhiraja of the Western Ganga line, was Avinita, otherwise named Kongaộivsiddharúja and Darvinita, " whose broad chest "was embraced by the beloved daughter of Skanda Varmma, the Punnad RAjal who herself “had chosen him though from her birth assigned by her father, according to the advice of his "own gara, to the son of another," and who was "the ruler of the whole of Pannad “(? Pakhad) and Punnad." Now, this Mallohalli grant, though Mr. Rice will not see it, is a spurions grant, belonging to a much later period than the date, Saka-Samvat 435 or A.D. 513514, to which he has referred it (ante, Vol. V. p. 140). This date was arrived at by him as part and parcel of his theories regarding the Western Gangas, which are erroneous throughout, because they are based on nothing but a series of spurious and unreliable grants. And, having given up his original suggestion that Punnâtarâja-Skandavarman, the father-in-law of Avinita, might be a Pallava king or a fendatory of a Pallava king (ante, Vol. V. p. 135), and having identified him instead with the Skandavarman of the present record, it followed that, having fixed Saka-Samvat 400 or A.D. 478-79 for the beginning of the reign of Avinita, he was natur. ally obliged, as part and parcel of his theories, to refer to an early period in the sixth century A.D. the present grant of Ravidatta, whom he took to be the son of Skandavarman. I shall dismiss, without further comment, the exact dates arrived at by him. It is only necessary to point out that his remarks quoted above shew plainly that he treated the present inscription of Ravi. datta as a genuine record; and that he used it for historical purposes, either as corroborative of, or as corroborated by, another record, which he supposes to be genuine and ancient.
I differ considerably from Mr. Rice in my interpretation of this inscription. In the first place, instead of finding six generations in unbroken succession of father and son, with Ravidatta in the last of them, I find that Skandavarman's son was Pannataraja, and that Ravidatta is simply mentioned as a descendant of Pannitarája, - with what interval between them it is impossible to say. In making Ravidatta the son of Skandavarman, Mr. Rice seems to have taken the word Punnatarajasya, line 9, simply as an epithet, either of Skandavarman or of Ravidatts, meaning that the person to whom it applies was a ruler of the Pannata or Pannada country. The construction of the passage is, of course, bad to a degree; and especially so is the use, - evidently intentional, though the vowel d has been omitted, - of the Taddhita affi, kyana, which is restricted to the special words amushydyana and dvyámushya. yaņa, and to such derivatives as Åsvalâyana, Bådarayaņa, Katyayana, &c, and whicb cannot be correctly used as it has been here, vis, as a separate word after Punndfardjarya which is in apposition with tat-putrasya. Bat, doing the best that is possible with the text, it certainly
1 The original, however, distinctly has punndtardja, like the present inscription. - I have quoted this passage from its later version, Myrore Inscriptions, p. 292. In ante, Vol. 1. p. 140, the only difference is that we have "of the Pannad rajs Skanda Varmma."
