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WARLIKE ACTIVITIES OF MEKALA
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be satisfactorily determined. We should, however, remember in this connection that a people called Pushyamitra is actually referred to in the Vishnu Purāna and a Puslyanitika-Kula in the Jain Kal pasūtra. The Purāņa text associates the Pushyamitras, Pațumitras, Durmitras and others with the region of Mekala near the source of the Nerbudda. References to the warlike activities of Mekala and the neighbouring realm of Kosala that had once been overrun by Kumāra's grandfather, are found in inscriptions of the Vākātaka relations of Kumāra Gupta. Bāņa relates the tragic story of a ruler of Magadha who was carried off by the ministers of the lord of Mekala. A passage in the Mankuwar stone image inscription of the year 129 ( A.D. 449 ) where the emperor Kumāra Gupta I is styled simply Mahārāja Śrī instead of Mahārājādhirūja Šri has been interpreted by some scholars to mean that he was possibly deprived by his enemies of his status as paramount sovereign. But the theory is rendered improbable by the Dāmodarpur plate of about the same date where Kumāra is given full imperial titles. It may be noted in this connection that in several inscriptions, and on certain coins, his immediate predecessors, too, are simply called Rājā or Mahārāja.
The assumption of the title Vyāghra-bala-parākrama "displaying the strength and prowess of a tiger”, on coins of the tiger-slayer type, by Kumāra may possibly indicate that he attempted to repeat the southern venture of his
1 SBE, XXII, 292. Cf. the legend Pusamitasa found on Bhițā seals in characters of the Kushān period or a somewhat earlier date (JRAS, 1911, 138).
2 Vish., IV, 24. 17; Wilson, IX, 213. "Pushyamitra and Patumitra and others to the number of 13 will rule over Mekalā." The commentary, however, distinguishes. the 13 Pushyamitra-Patumitras from the 7 Mekalas. But from the context it is apparent that the position of the Pushyamitras was between the Māhishyas (people of Māhishmati ?) and the Mekalas in the Nerbudda valley, if not in a part of the country of the Mekalas themselves. Cf. Fleet, JRAS, 1889, 228; cf. also Bhitā seals.
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