Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

Page 23

YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
branch of the Cālukya dynasty, which ruled over a province called Jola, a portion of which is said to have been included in the modern district of Dhārwār in Bombay Presidency. Nothing is known about Gangadhārā, but it seems to have been somewhere in or around Dharwar District. It may perhaps be identified with Gangawati in the south-western corner of Hyderabad State in Raichur District, quite near Dharwar. There is also a river named Gangawali in the North Kanara District south-west of Dharwar,
As regards the prince during whose reign Somadeva composed his romance, there is some doubt about the reading of the name Vāgarāja found in the printed text of Yasastilaka. Of the manuscripts of the work used by me, the well-written and correct A reads Vāgarāja as in the printed edition, but MSS. B and C read Vadyarāja, while a manuscript consulted by Pt. Nathuram Premi reads Vadyagarāja. The correct name, as we shall see, seems to be Baddiga of which Vādyarāja and Vadyagarāja are Sanskritized variations.
A copper plate inscription in Sanskrit recently found at Parbhani in Hyderabad Statet not only gives us a glimpse of Somadeva seven years after the composition of Yasastilaka but furnishes a genealogy of the feudatory Cālukya chiefs in whose territory he lived and worked. The genealogy of these tributaries of the Rāştrakūtas, hitherto known to us from the Kanarese Bharata composed by the Jaina roet Pampa in 941 A. D.,' is here carried to 966 A, D., the date of the inscription. The list of kings may be compiled as follows:
Yuddhamalla I, Arikesarin I, Narasimha I (+Bhadradeva), Yuddhamalla II, Baddiga I (defeated and captured Bhima), Yuddhamalla III, Narasimha II, Arikesarin II (married a Rāştrakūta princess named Lokāmbikā), Bhadradeva, Arikesarin III, Baddiga II (Vadyaga) and Arikegarin IV. Of the kings mentioned Arikesarin II was the patron of Panpa who wrote his masterpieces in 941 A. D.; while Baddiga II or Vadyaga was the king during whose reign Somadeva completed his romance in the year 959 A. D., as recorded in the colophon. The inscription under discussion
Bhārata composed bye hastrakūtas, hitherto kno worked. The genealogy
1 Bhandarkar: Early History of the Dekkan, third edition, p. 137. 2 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. XXVI, Atlas, Plates 39 and 42. 3 Pt. Premi: Jaina Sahitya aura Itihäsu p. 76, Bombay 1942. 4 Reproduced in the above work (p. 90 f.) from the Journal of the Bhārata Itihāsa
Samsodhana Mandala, Poona, Vol. XIII, No. 3, published in Marāthi. 6 Bhandarkar: Barly History of the Dekkan, p. 137 and Altekar: The Rästrakūtas
and their times, p. 129.