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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(DECEMBER, 1902.
an example of a state treaty, an agreement of the same date between the Mahamandalesvara Râņa Lavanyaprasada and Simbaņa (Simghaņa), the Mahardjadhirdja of Devagiri, in which both contracting parties respectively promise to respect the other's boundaries, to keep peace and to help each other. Although the first of these two documents is evidently nothing more than & formula, and of the second nothing can be certainly proved as to whether it is a copy of a real treaty, yet their value remains considerable. Then, as the author of the Lekhapañchášiká was a contemporary of Lavanaprasáda, we may take for granted that he describes the political relations in general correctly. We may believe him on the one hand that in the Vikrama year 1288 Lavaņaprasada was authorised to make treaties with foreign princes and consequently possessed a high degree of independence. On the other hand we must admit, that if Lavanaprasáda at that time made gifts of land, he employed the form ordinarily used by tributary princes and acknowledged the overlordship of Bhima. If this be correct, there can be no question of a defection on the part of Lavanaprasada, at least until V.-S. 1288. The relation must rather have been as Arisimha gives it. Lavaņaprasada stood higher than all other rulers of districts, and governed the kingdom his master in the strength of the trust committed to him. However free and high may have been his position, he had not become a rebel. The confirmation, which Arisimha's statements receive through the Lekha panchásikd, make it advisable, in the representation of this period of the history of Gujarat, to trust him more than the insinuations of Somesvara.
In concluding the discussion of this part of the Sukritasankirtana, the mythological clothing must still be Eventioned. In the treatise by Zachariae and myself on the Navasdhasdikacharita, p. 48, I shewed that the court-poets often deemed it suitable, at crises in the history of their heroes, to make the gods actively interfere. When Arisimha then makes the spirit of Kumarapala descend from the fields of heaven to move Bhima to the appointment of Lavanaprasada as his Sarvesvara, it is not difficult to see what moved him to make use of this deus ex machina. Kumarapala was well known as the adherent and protector of the Jaina faith. After his death a Brahmaņ reaction took place under Ajayspåla; and though Ajayapâla reigned only a short time, the Jaina sect seems not to have regained its former importance under his sons Mülaraja and Bhima II. Only when Vastapala and Tejahpâla became ministers in Dholká, did it again raise its head. Both belonged to one Jaina family and were filled with great enthusiasm for their religion. They spent a great part of their rich incomes on the erection of temples, asylums and benevolent institutions, so that at least the outward lustre of the name of the Jainas was restored. Arisimhs tried to unite the two prosperous periods of his sect by representing Kumarapala as the intellectual originator of the second. In doing 80, he has not refrained from putting words into king Bhima's mouth which he certainly never spoke, when he makes him call upon Vastupala and Tejahpala (v. 61 above) to glorify the belief on the lord of the Jainas. According to all we know of Bhima, he favoured exclusively the Brahmaņs, and especially the Saivas, to whom he made many presents. To excite Vastupala's enthusiasm for his faith was, however, absolutely unnecessary.
Vastupala's pilgrimage to Satrumjays and Girnar. In the fourth Sargs Arisimha turns to the description of the sukrita or pious works of Vastupala, by which he adorned the Jains religion. First he mentions shortly that Viradhavala. with the help of his minister, soon conquered the ocean-girt earth and put down all wrong and violence (vv. 1-7). Then he relates how in that happy time Tejahpala came to his brother, praised his successes, and advised him to keep in mind the king's command and support the Jaina religion (vv. 8-13). Vastupala agreed and declared he would at once visit his spiritual director to hear his preaching and begin his works of piety according to his advice (vv. 14-26). On this occasion the succession of the monks of the Nagendra gachchha is gone over, which, since the time of Chandape, had served the family as spiritual advisers. The names are precisely the same as those in the Prasasti of Tejahpâla's temple on Mount Åbů 36: -(1) Mahendrasûri (vv. 15-16);
* Kertikaumudi, App. A., PP. 9-10.
