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POLITICAL HISTORY OF N. INDIA FROM JAIN SOURCES
lake Sāmbhara). Moreover, we have the testimony of the two literary works noted above which without mentioning Ahicchatra, associate the rise of the Cāhamānas with the lake Sākambhari (sāmbhara or Puşkaratirtha)) situated on the border of the Jodhpur and Jaipur divisions. In order to show more evidences, we have the earliest inscriptions of the tribe so far discovered, the provenance of which and the identification of some of the places mentioned therein demonstrate that the Sākambhari region was, from the very beginning, the cradle of this race.
The identification of Ahicchatrapur which is stated here' as the original seat of the government of Sāmanta has been also a subject of much discussion. Some scholars like Bhagavanlal Indraji and Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar, on the assumption that the original home of the Cāhamānas is also called Sapādalakṣa, are inclined to regard this word as the original Samskřt of the modern word Sivālika, which is a range of hills below Dehra Dun in the Saharanpur district, U.P. and thus, according to them, this Ahicchatrapur must have been a town in that region in the upper Gangā-Jumnā Valley, from where the dynasty migrated southwards. Pt. G. H. Ojha, on the evidence of an inscription, which states that Ahicchatrapur was the capital of Jāngludeśa (Jāngaladeśa), has identified it with Nāgpur (modern Nagapur in the Jodhpur division), as Nāga and Ahi being the synonymous terms. In the Jain literature of the eleventh and later centuries Cāhamānas were called the kings of Jāngala. Kumārapāla, according to the Vasanta-vilāsa, fought with Jāngaleśa Arnorāja.4 This Jāngala country has been identified with the region now known as Bikaner and the northern Mārwār.
We, now, on the basis of the above facts and on the evidences gathered from the earlier inscriptions, can say that Ahicchatrapur must have been at that time in the Sākambhari-pradeśa where Vişnu (Vāsudeva), the predecessor of Sämanta, had carved out his principality
There are several branches of the Cāhamānas ruling over various places. The following branches are known from the Jain sources: (1) Cāhamānas of Sākambhari, (2) Cāhamānas of Ranastambhapura, (3) Cāhamānas of Naddula, (4) Cāhamänas of Jāvälipura and (5) Cāhamānas of Lāța. Except the last one all other branches ruled in Rājasthāna.
1 V. II. 2 EI., XXVI, p. 89. 3 Ojha, Nāgari pracārini-patrikā, Vol. II, Part III; JASB., 1922, p. 289. 4 GOS., VII, Canto III, Vs. 2, 9, 32. See also Sukyta-samkirtana, Canto II,
V. 43.
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