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INTRODUCTION
deducible from his Epic. Quite at the beginning of the great work we have a line in which we are told that the king of Mänyakheta who is here called "Tudiga" killed the king of the Colas.
बद्ध
भूभंगभ
तोडे प्पिणु चोडहो तणउ सोसु ।
We read in Dr. Smith's Early history of India (pp. 424-430) that "The war with the Colas in the reign of Kṛṣṇa III, the Rastrakūta king, was remarkable for the death of Rajaditya, the Cola king, on the field of battle in 949 A. D." Again in the Imperial Gazetteer, Vol. II, page 332, we read, "The Raṣṭrakūta Kṛṣṇa III (940-971) had great success in the Cola country and inscriptions in that tract show that he exercised sovereign rights over parts of it. An inscription at Atkur, also in Mysore, of the year 949-50 relates that at a time when the Rastrakūta king Kṛṣṇa III was warring against the Cola king Rajaditya, son of Parantaka I, the former's ally Bütuga II of the Western Gangas of Talkāḍ (who had married Kṛṣṇa's sister), murdered the Cola sovereign at a place called Tatkola, not far west of modern Madras.. "Somadeva also in the colophon to his Yaśastilaka refers to the conquests of Cola by Krsna III. Thus it is probable that the line quoted from Puspadanta refers to this very event.
Continuing our search we find at the beginning of the 50th chapter of Uttarapurana a verse of some importance for our inquiry. This verse is
दीनानाथधनं सदाबहुजनं प्रोत्फुल्लवल्लीवनं मान्याखेटपुरं पुरंदरपुरीलीलाहरं सुन्दरम् । धारानाथनरेद्रकोपशिखिना दग्धं षिदग्धप्रियं
वेदानीं वसतिं करिष्यति पुनः श्रीपुष्पदन्तः कविः ॥
In this verse Puspadanta refers to the raid of Manyakheta by some king of Dhara that took place in his time. Dhanapala in his Paiyalacchīnāmamālā (verse 276) says that he composed the work "when one thousand years of the Vikrama era and twenty nine besides had passed, when Manyakheta had been plundered in consequence of an attack made by the lord of Malava." A reference to this plunder occurs in the Udaipur Prasasti as well ( Ep. Ind., Vol. I, p. 226 ), the 12th verse of which
runs as follows:
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तस्मात् [वैरिसिंहात्] अभूदरिनरेश्वरसंघसेवागर्जंद्गजेन्द्ररवसुन्दरतूर्यनादः ।
श्रीहर्षदेव इति खोट्टिगदेवलक्ष्मीं जग्राह यो युधि नगादसमप्रतापः ॥ १२ ॥
Khottigadeva was the successor of Krsna III, and we have a stone inscription of his date in the Saka year 893; while Harṣadeva was a Paramāra King of Dhara contemporaneous with Kṛṣṇa III and Khottigadeva. It is quite possible that Puspadanta in the above quoted verse refers to this plunder of Manyakheta by Harṣadeva. The identifications irresistibly lead us to the conclusion that Puspadanta wrote in the time of Krsna III. It has been said above that Puspadanta refers to the king contemporaneous with him by the names of Vallabharaya and Subhatunga. As for the first of these terms, it is known to have been the general title of the Raṣṭrakuța princes. Dr. V. Smith tells us: "All these writers (Arab) agree in stating that they regarded the Balhara as the greatest sovereign in India. They called the Raṣṭrakūta kings Balhara, because those princes were in the habit of assuming the title of Vallabha
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