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JUNE, 1907.]
NAVASAHASANKACHARITA OF PADMAGUPTA.
171
According to the poem, Sindhuraja bore the surnames of Kumaranarayana 9 am Navas&hasanka, “because he undertook hundreds of hazardous enterprises ( sahasa )." Several o these bold deeds are enumerated. A number of princes and peoples, whom Sindhurája is said to have conquered, are presented in X. 14–20.49 Among the names mentioned are found a prince of the Honas of the same race as he, with whom Siyaka waged war, and a prince of the Kosalas. Farther is mentioned the subjection of the inhabitants of Vagada, of the eastern part of the province of Kachchh, 90 of Lata, middle and southern Gujarât, and the Muralas, of a people in Southern India, that is perhaps identical with the Keralas, the inhabitants of Malabar. The word of an Indian court-poet, when he speaks of his lord's victories, must not be put in gold scales. Every Indian hero must have made his digvijayaydtra, “his march to the conquest of the world," and must have been successful. When the actual facts did not give material enough, poetic fancy was ready to fill up the gaps: though expeditions against the Hûna, against Vagad, which belonged to the kingdom of the Chaulukya of Anhilvâd, and against Lata where ruled the dynasty of Barapa, also conquered by the Chaulakyas, were not at all unlikely. So far as the relation between the Chaulukyes and the Paraméras is concerned, it was always bad. The Jaina Prabandhas relate that the cause of the strife was an insult offered to the second Chaulukya King Chamunda. When the latter had retired from the throne in favour of his son, 1010-11 A. D., he made a pilgrimage to Benares. On his entrance into the country of Malva, the king caused his paragol and the other signs of his rank to be taken away. He was forced to let the insult pass : on his return, however, he commanded his son to take revenge. Thus began the enmity between Malva and Gujarat, which lasted till the destruction of both kingdoms by the Muhammadans.91 This narrative sounds rather incredible. Still the long feud between the two states, which brought first one and then the other to the brink of destruction, is an indisputable fact. Its ground probably lay not in a chance occurrence, but in the old race-hatred between the Paramâras and the Chaulukyns or Chalukyas and the necessity of expansion of both neighbouring kingdoms. Thus Padmagupta's report of a certain temporary conquest of Vågad is quite credible. Also it is quite possible that Sindhurâja waged a successful war against his neighbour in the south-west, the king of Laţa. Bârapa and his family also belonged to the Chaulukyas and in nearer relationship to Tailapa II. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how Sindhurâja could overcome the Murales, if by these the Keralas are to be understood. If it may be understood, however, that Padmagupta - as often occurs with Sanskrit poets - uses the expression inexactly and means some inhabitants of Dravidian India, nothing can be said against his statement. For, from the Vikramankadevacharita it is certain that the struggle of the Paramaras of Malva with the Châlukyas of Kalyana continued after Muñja's death.02 It is therefore not at all improbable that Sindhuraja undertook an expedition to the south. Of the war with Kosala nothing trustworthy can be said. It may only be remarked that the kingdom of Kosala spoken of embraced parts of the Central Provinces of to-day and Berar.98
The story from the personal history of Sindhuraja, which represents the true object of Padmagupta's work, is unfortunately surrounded with so thick a mythological.covering that it is impossible, without the help of accounts containing only sober facts, to give particular details with certainty. Those who are familiar with the court poet's method of description and the Indian inclination to change historical events of the most recent past, for purely poetical reasons, into myths will not doubt for a moment that Padmagupta's seemingly fanciful legend rests throughout upon a historical basis. Analogies in other poems are not rare. Take, for example, Dilhann's
# See above, p. 155.
* Seo above, p. 157, note 25. do Conf. Ind. Ant. Vol. VI. 9, 184.
K. Forbes, Rds Mala, p. 52. Merutunga saserts that the king of Malvd referred to was Mulja Hemachandra is not guilty of this anachronism in the Duyasrayakosha; he gives, however, no names. n Vikrama tikaileracharila, p. 27.
Soe Sir A. Cunningham, Anc. Geog. p. 519 ff.
