Epigraphia Indica Vol 05

SR No.: 032559
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 458
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 22 MB

Page 201

158
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. V.
the great-grandfather of Vikramaditys II. In such circumstances, it is not at all probable that Pallavamalla-Nandivarman can have completed the fiftieth year of his reign between A.D. 733 and 747. It is much more likely that his reign did not even commence till A.D. 715 or later. And fifty years from that point would bring him on to just the time to which we may refer Sivamara I. and Muttarasa. The spurious Manne grant, indeed, would carry him on to even later times: it says, speaking of Sivamâra II., that "his forehead was adorned by a fillet (of royalty) placed there with their own hands, when they performed (his) anointment to the sovereignty, by the two ornaments of the Rashtrakuta and Pallava lineages named Govindaraja and Nandivarman, who were (already) anointed on (their own) foreheads." Govindaraja seems to be the Rashtrakuta king Govinda III., whose reign began about A.D. 783-84 and ended in A.D. 814-15: Sivamara II. was undoubtedly contemporaneous with him towards the end of his reign; and we shall find reasons, further on, for believing that he did assist or recognise the succession of Sivamara II. to the leadership of the Gangas. Nandivarman must be Pallavamalla-Nandivarman, son of Hiranyavarman. He cannot have had anything to do with Sivamara II. at so late a time as the date of his succession on the death of Muttarasa. And it seems that, mixed up with a real act of Govinda III. towards the second Sivamara, the Mappe grant has preserved an anachronistic reminiscence of a real act of Pallavamalla-Nandivarman towards the first Śivamâra; viz. that, on the downfall of the Western Chalukyas, he formally recognised Sivamara I. and crowned him as the chief, more or less feudatory, of a powerful tribe on the borders of his own outlying province of Nolambavâḍi. The date of A.D. 760, mentioned above as the closely approximate time of the complete extinction of the Western Chalukya power, is within the period to which Śivamâra I. is to be referred, and within the time to which the reign of Pallavamalla-Nandivarman may be carried on, And we shall probably be very near the truth, if we take A.D. 755 as the initial date of the succession of Sivamara I. to the leadership of the Western Gangas, and A.D. 760 as the time when he was recognised by Pallavamalla-Nandivarman. We may then place the accession of Muttarasa about five years later, in A.D. 785; and, as there are indications, as already mentioned, that he had a long rule, and as we have a record which is actually dated in perhaps his twenty-ninth year, we may assume that he ruled for about forty years, up to A.D. 805. As the record which seems to be dated in his twenty-ninth year still gives him, like the earlier ones, the title of Mahdrája, it would appear that it was in the last ten years of his time that he threw off all semblage of vassalage and assumed the paramount titles; till then, he must have been more or less feudatory, at first to PallavamallaNandivarman, and then to a kinsman of his own, Vijaya-Narasimhavarman, who, as we shall see just below, succeeded to the Pallava throne after Pallavamalla-Nandivarman."
1 For this record, see page 160 below, note 7.
The original, which I am able to quote from photographs which Mr. Bice kindly sent me, runs-(plate iv, a, line 10 ff.) R[4]shtraku(ke)ta-Pallav-ánvaya-tilakdbhyam marddh-ábbishikta-Govindaraja-Nandivarmm. dbhidheydbhydin samanushti(shthi)ta-rdjy-dbhishekdb hydm uni(ni)ja-kara-ghatita-patta-vibhashita-laldṭapatto tri-Sivamdradésa[*].-I have taken laldṭapatta, the flat surface of the forehead,' as simply an alliterative expansion of laldta. Otherwise, we might divide the compound, laldța-paṭṭó, and translate the (hereditary Ganga) fillet (of royalty) on his forehead was adorned by (other) fillets placed there with their own hands," etc.; this, however, does not seem so satisfactory a rendering.
It might, perhaps, be said that he is the later Nandivarman, also called Vijaya-Nandi-Vikramavarman, son of Dantivarman (see page 159 below). But this does not seem at all probable. And, if it were so, an anachronism in the other direction would be involved; for, Nandivarman, the son of Dantivarman, cannot be placed as early as A.D. 797, which is the pretended date of the Mappe grant; he cannot be placed before A.D. 804, which is the date that we have for Dantivarman.
The Humeha inscription of A.D. 1077-78-(see Mr. Rice's Annual Report for the year ending 31st March 1891; this record contains a great deal of mythical matter, relating to the Santara family as well as to the Western Gangas, and is, of course, of no more value than the spurious copper-plate grants in respect of the early history which it pretends to give)-asserts that Sripurusha-(Mattarass) was the first of the Western