Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 60
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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APRIL, 1931 ]
THE STAGING OF THE VIDDHASALABHANJIKA
by the disrespectful words used in the Wardha grant for Govinda IV by his cousin Indra III, the son and successor of Amoghavarsa. If Amoghavarsa III had not captured the throne by violent means, his son would hardly have used gucb words towards his (Amoghavarşa's) immediate predecessor, however bad his character might have been. In inscriptions which are meant to be a permanent record such dispraise can only be expected from a usurper or murderer.
4. Having so far dealt with the place and occasion of tbe representation, we should next like to deal with some other interesting details furnished by the staging of the drama. The real hero, as I pointed out in the beginning, is Keyûravarsa Yuvarâjadeva, and not Vidyadharamalla or any other fictitious character. Hence the details of the possessions, when given, might be said to apply to the domains of the Chedis about 933 A.D. In the letter sent by the general, he is called the lord of Tripuri and the Murala country. These we might therefore regard as the central possessions of the Haihayas. By Murala here perhaps the poet means the country lying about the Murala, which has been identified with the river Narmada by Mr. S. N. Majumdar in his recent edition of Cunning. ham's Ancient Geography of India. 10 Besides this, the king has been called the 'lord of Trikalinga' in two places. 11 As Kokalladeva, the grandfather of Yuvarâja, too, was the master of this territory 12 in 870 A.D., and Yuvarâjadeva himself was probably at the height of his power in 933 A.D., it is not to be wondered at that he was the master of the extensivo territories denoted by the name Trikalinga,' which is believed to mean Kalinga, Andhra and a part of Orisa. At another place the king is called mramor 'the lord of Ujja. yini,'13 As the other details given about the Chedi dominions in this drama are quite correct, are we not to conclude that Yuvaraja was the lord of Ujjain in 933 A.D., and that it was captured later in the century by the Paramâras ?16 In fine, if we combine all these references, we find that the Haihayas of Chedi ruled over a very large kingdom in the thirties of the tenth century. Besides being the masters of the greater part of the Narmada valley, they were the lords of Eastern Mâlwå in the west, and a part of the sea-coast in the east. As for the statement at the end of the drama that the king attained the status of a Chakravartin as the result of his marriage with Mrgánkávali, we might dismiss it as the expression of the ambition rather than the actual acoomplishment of Yuvarâjadeva I, who was only one of the many strong princes of the south.
10 P. 720. 11 waras ir gara Ararua y a :
wa raf f it: Act I, p. 43, and Act IV, p. 139 (Jivananda Vidyasagara's edition). 13 C. V. Vaidya. History of Medieval India, Part II, p. 135. 13 images Act I, p. 10.
14 Mr. 8. N. Majumdar Sastri also believes, though I do not know on what grounds, that Ujjain was the capital of the Katacohuris before the Paramarne. See his edition of Cunningham's Geography of Ancient India, p. 726.
