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À. K. CHATTERJEE
109
then we have to assign the Ashrafpur plates either to 679 or to 685 A.D. The Ashrafpur plates contain the names of a few Khadga kings beginning from Khadgodyama and ending with Rājaräjabhațţa. The latter has been identified with Rājabhata mentioned by the Chinese pilgrim I-tsing (671 A.D.). 29 The second inscription of the Khadgas, viz. the Sarvāṇi image inscription, also discloses the names of the kings mentioned in the Ashrafpur plates. We do not know exactly at what time Khadga rule in Samatata terminated ; but Jinasena's reference proves that they continued to maintain a separate existence till 783 A.D.
The Mallas, referred to like the Khadgas as an eastern people, may be identified with the Mallas of the Mahābodhi region referred to in an inscription of Dharmapāla's 26th year (Mallānāṁ Mahābodhi-nivāsinām).30 We must remember in this connexion that Jinasena II was a contemporary of Indrāyudha who was later dethroned by Dharmapāla. So there is no real difficulty in identifying Jinasena's Mallas with the Mallas referred to in Dharmapāla's inscription mentioned above. In the Adipurānas1 of Jinasena I, a work probably composed 83 sometime after the Harivamśa Purāna, there is reference to Malladeśa which is placed immediately after Kirāta-vişaya. The Mallas are, however, repeatedly referred to in the ancient texts including the Buddhist, epic and Purāņic works.88 From pre-Buddhist times, they were divided into two peoples, viz. the Malla proper and Dakşiņa-Malla.84 Probably the Mallas,
29 Beal, Life of Hiuen Tsiang, Intro., pp. xxv, xl ; see also Sen, op. cit.,
p. 80.
30 Gaudalekhamālā, pp. 31-32.
*[The name was borrowed from the Puranic list of eastern peoples. See p. 108, note above and the author's remarks below, p. 110 and notes.Ed.]
31 Ed. P. L. Jain, 29.48.
32 See P. L. Jain, op. cit., p. 8; see also the Introd. in Hindi by the same scholar in his edition of the Adipurâna, p. 34.
33 See Raychaudhuri, op. cit., pp. 126f.; Kusa Jātaka (No. 531); Mahāparinibbana Suttanta, Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II, pp. 136ff., 161-62.
34 See Mahābhārata, II. 30. 3. 12.
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