Epigraphia Indica Vol 23

SR No.: 032577
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1935
Total Pages: 436
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 118

No. 14.)
PATTAN PLATES OF PRAVARASENA II.
who was a servant (santaka) of Kaundarāja. It is stated at the end that Pitämaha and Nanda caused the charter to be drafted.
Till now the latest known year of Pravarasēna Il's reign was the twenty-third, furnished by his Dudia® and Tirodie plates. The present plates therefore increase his reign by about four years. Kaupdarāja, whose servant Isvaradatta incised the present charter, is evidently identical with Kõndarāja, the son of Satrughnarāja, at whose request the grant recorded in the Chammak plates was made.
The mention of Kālidāsa in the present grant raises the interesting question of his identity with the illustrious Sanskrit poet of that name. The date of the latter has been for more than a century the subject of controversy, and various theories have been advanced, attempting to fix it in periods ranging from the first century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. Of these the theory which places him in the Gupta age and makes him a contemporary of Chandragupta (II)-Vikramāditya is gradually gaining ground and receiving general acceptance. But nothing short of a contemporary inscriptional record mentioning the poet's name would remove the doubts of sceptics in this matter. The earliest epigraphical mention of this name, so far known, was that in the Aihole prasasti of Pulakēsin II, Saka 556 ( A.D. 634) This is, therefore, the first time that the name Kalidasa has been discovered in a record of the Gupta period.
Kalidasa, no doubt, figures only as a scribe in the present grant; but that does not per se disprove his identity with the great Sanskrit poet. Such charters were generally drafted and written on copper-plates by clerks working in the office of the Sāndhivigrahika or Minister for peace and war, but sometimes we find even great officers mentioned as writers of such documents. Thus the writer of the recently published Tiroời plates of this very Pravarasēna II was the Chief Minister (Räjyādhikrita) himself. The Añjanavati grant of the Rashtrakūta Govinda III, was written by his Minister for peace and war. So there is nothing improbable in the supposition that the writer of the present plates was identical with Kálidāsa, the great Sanskrit poet. Recent researches have, again, shown that Kālidāsa was for some time at least connected with the Vākāțaka court. From certain passages in the Kuntalēšvaradautya, a Sanskrit work ascribed to Kālidāsa, which have been cited in the Kavyamimāṁsāto of Rājaśēkhara, the Spingāraprakāśall and the Sarasvatikanthābharanglt of Bhoja, and the Auchityavicharacharcha of Kshēmēndra, it has been conjectured with great probability that Kalidasa was sent as an ambassador by his patron Vikramaditya to the
1 Santaka which is connected with the Pali word santika meaning 'proximity, presence occurs elsewhere M technical territorial term (see C. I. I., Vol.III, pp. 118, 120 and 132). It is used in Vakataka grants in the sense of & subordinate officer or a servant.
. Cf. C. 1. 1., Vol. III, p. 99 note 3. The word Kārāvaka used here corresponds to Karapaka which occurs elsewhere, e.g., in the Eklingji Stone Inscription, J. B. B. R. A. 8., Vol. XXII, p. 167.
. Above, Vol. III, p. 262. . Ibid., Vol. XXII, p. 174. .C.I.I., Vol. III, p. 237. • Above, Vol. VI, p. 3.
Above, Vol. XXII, p. 174. Above p. 18; also C. I. I., Vol. III, p. 99, note 3.
. The name occurs as Kuntisvaradautya in the Auchityavicharacharcha of Kshēmēndra (Nirnayasagara Press ed., p. 139), but it is there probably a mistake for Kuntalesvaradantya.
10 Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Second edition, pp. 60-61. u Sringaraprakaba, Chapters XXII-XXIV, Introd., p. xxii. 12 Nirnayasagara Press ed., p. 168. w Kavyamala, Guchrhha 1, Nirnayasagara Press ed., pp. 139-40.