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Vākātaka Historiography as Seen in the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century
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discussing their contents and historical importance. Summarizing the main points of the contents of these reocrds he observed:
(These records) have given us the only date for Rudrasena II, narrowed the gap in the shifting of the capital of the main branch from Nandi Vardhana to Pravarapura, helped us in locating Padmapura in the Nagpur-Wardha region instead of in the Bhandara District as believed hitherto, brought us nearer the solution of the riddle concerning the succession after Rudrasena II, thrown a fresh light on the reigns of Narendrasena and his son and successor Prithivisena II, given us the only known Saka date for Devasena which now forms the sheet anchor of the chronology of the Vatsagulma branch and supplied the hitherto unknown name of Devasena's father, viz., Sarvasena II, and names of two of the officers of Hariseņa, the last known member of the Vatsagulma branch of the dynasty. We have, for the first time, the seals attached to the copper-plate grants issued by Prabhavatiguptā during the reign of her third son Pravarasena II and those of Prithivişeņa II, the last known member of the main branch of the family. In addition to these facts mainly relating to political history we also get
a good deal of information on the cultural history of the period." Thereafter, in 1992, Shāstri brought out his edited work The Age of the Vākāțakas. It contains twenty-four chapters contributed by various scholars and an appendix entitled 'The Progress of Vākātaka Historiography by the present writer (pp. 297-308). The contents of this volume were arranged thematically into four sectious dealing with political history, administration and culture, archaeology and art and also epigraphy and numismatics. In chapter 1 Ajay Mitra Shāstri showed that at the moment we have no evidence whatsoever to assume that the original home of the Vākātakas lay in the South. Like S. R. Goyal he also pointed out that the use of Southern titles in the inscriptions of the Basim branch does not prove the southern origin of the Vākāțakas, for these titles are not found used in the charters of the Nandivardhana-Pravarapura branch. In chapter 2 B. N. Mukherjee suggests that the original habitat of the Vākätakas was in the Vindhya region while in chapter 3 K. V. Ramesh assigns them to Vidarbha. The relations of the Vākātakas with the Guptas have been discussed by Sohoni (ch. 5) and Mirāshi (ch. 8) and the Vākātaka-Kadamba relations have been dealt with by M. J. Sharma (ch. 7).
Other papers contained in the volume cover a very wide range of important issues concerning the age of the Vākāțakas and throw welcome light on them. They also deal with very valuable recent finds, like those of the Vākātaka temples at Ramtek (ch. 14) and recent epigraphic and numismatic discoveries. Over half of the Vākāțaka epigraphs, some of them highly valuable and informative, have come to light after the publication of V. V. Mirāshi's monumental Corpus of the Vākāțaka inscriptions mentioned above. A short supplement incorporating a detailed treatment of their contents and value has been included in this volume (pp. 227-68) and so is an account of the Vākāțaka coins (pp. 285-94). Both these chapters (21 and 24) have been written by Shāstri himself.
The last work of Ajay Mitra Shāstri on the Vākātakas was Vākāțakas-Sources and History. Published in 1997, it was yet another noteworthy effort on the Vākāțakas. It is divided into two parts. In part I Shāstri analysed the epigraphic and numismatic source-material on the subject and in part II provided an outline of the Vākātaka history. Chapter 1 of part I deals with the epigraphs incorporated by V.V. Mirashi in his Inscriptions of the Vākāļakas published in 1963. A perusal of this chapter would suffice to show that it is much more than a mere abstract and in most cases fresh interpretations
