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84
there is an anecdote which relates an attack on Gujarăta by a Karpa in the time of Kumarapala. The Prabandha-cintamani of Merutunga tells us:
POLITICAL HISTORY OF N. INDIA FROM JAIN SOURCES
"Once when the Caulukya Kumarapala of Aṇahilapäṭaka was going on a pilgrimage, he was informed by a couple of messengers (Yugalikā), who came from a foreign country that Karpa, king of Dahala, was marching against him. His forehead was beaded with drops or perspiration, and he abandoned, out of fear, his desire of being head of the congregation, and came with the minister Vägbhața and blamed himself at the feet of Hemacandra. The story runs that the Jain sage assured his disciple that in the 12th watch from this time your mind will be relieved. At the appointed time Kumarapala was informed that 'Karna had gone. to heaven'.2 Karna, we are told, was making a march at night, seated on an elephant, and allowed his eyes to close in sleep, and while he was in this state, a gold chain that he wore on his neck, caught in a banyan. tree, and hanged him, and so he died."
Since the reign of Kumarapala ranged between c. 1144-73 A.D., his contemporary king of Dahala referred to as Karga must be Gayäkarna. As regards the details of the story we should not place any reliance without independent corroboration. This much we may infer from the story that Gayakarna might have started this attack in his old age and before reaching his destiny he collapsed.
We know nothing about his successors from the Jain sources.
Thus Gängeya, Lakşmikarna, and Gayākarna, the only three kings of the dynasty, are known from the Jain sources of our period.
1 PC., PP. 92, 93 : त्वां प्रति डाहलदेशीयकर्णनृपतिरुपैति ....
* Ibid: समागतयुगलिकया श्रीकर्णे दिवंगत इति विज्ञप्तः ।
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