________________
266
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1891.
effect which Buddhism generally has produced, not only upon individuals, but upon entire nations; but that does not yet entitle as to view bim as the childish and helpless being he has been represented. It was the sentiment of religion which inspired him with the idea of engraving inscriptions throughout his empire. We usually only see him under this aspect, but the desire which he expresses in so great detail, to be kept continually informed regarding his affairs, and to expedite them without any delay, does not give us the idea of an idle prince.
I am afraid also that, in some respects, he bears, more than is justly due, the responsibility for the somewhat clumsy and awkward language which he uses in his inscriptions. It is plain that the style, at least the style of prose language, - had in his time not yet achieved that experience, that freedom of manner, which give to the thoughts a turn at once elegant and precise. His sentences are often short, even abrupt, and are always wanting in variety. His language is a 'prentice sailor, afraid to venture far from shore. When in an unlucky moment, he ventures on a period, he only makes his exit with great difficulty. The ill-fitting garment does injustice to the intellect whose movements it encumbers. That intellect was not, perhaps, very vast or very decided, but it was certainly animated with excellent intentions, and full of the idea of moral duty and of the sentiments of humanity. By the various efforts with which he was inspired in his religious zeal, by his relations with nations not subject to his empire, nay, with peoples the most distant from the Peninsula, and finally, by the monuments, epigraphic or otherwise, of which he was the creator, Piyadasi certainly rendered services to the general civilisation of India, and the credit of these merits we are in justice bound to render to him.
-
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EASTERN CHALUKYA KINGS.
BY J. P. FLEET, BO.C.S., M.R.A.S., C.I.E.
(Concluded from p. 104.) 16. - Amma I. ; Vishnuvardhana VI.
Seven years; A.D. 918 to 925. He was the eldest son of No. 15, Vijayaditya IV. In S. his name is given as Amba; In all the other grante, commencing with K., it is Amma. He had the epithet of sarvaldkabrays, 'refuge of all mankind;' the second name of Vishnuvardhana VI.; and the biruda of Raja-Mahondra; the latter occurs in one of his own grants (L.), and in U.; and it saggests that the oity of Rajamahendrapuram or Bajamandri was first occupied, by the Eastern Chalukyas, under him, and was renamed after him (see page 94 above). In his own granta, he uses the title of Maharaja. The seals of his granta bear the motto of krt-Tribhuvanankus (see page 100 above). M. and all the subsequent grants agree in stating that he reigned for seven years.
L. states that he used his sword against some feudatory relatives who had joined the party of his natural adversaries, and won over to himself the subjeots and the army of his father and his grandfather. This intimates that some of the members of his family had entered into an unsuccessful conspiracy with the Rashtrakatas, to prevent his accession.
Of his time we have two records :
K.- A grant from Magulipatam in the Kistna District; edited by Mr. Sewell, ante, Vol. VIII. p. 76; I have also my own reading of the original plates. - It gives the dynastic name as Ohalukya. This grant, or L., is the earliest record that gives the full historical genealogy, with the lengths of the reigns. It gives the opening passage in its final form,
prakriti-sapatna-paksha. Compare the description of the Pallava king, m the natural enemy (prakrity amitwa) of the Western Chalukya hing Vikramaditya II. (ante, Vol. VIII. p. 20, Platelia, last line)
. I have taken K. first, because it wwe published first.
