North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

Each of the plates constitutes a royal charter, recording the grant of a village by the Paramabhaṭṭāraka, Mahārājādhirāja and Paramēśvara, the illustrious Trailōkyavarmadēva of the royal house of the Chandēllas, from his encampment at the village of Vaḍavāḍa, in favour of Sāvanta whose father, Pāpē was killed in a battle with the Turushkas. The first of the records relates to the grant of the village Kādōha, included in the territorial division Pāṇiüli (l. 7), and the second to that of the village of Lōhasihāṇī, in that of Vikrauṇi (l. 7). The first of the documents is dated Friday, the 2nd tithi of the bright fortnight of Vaiśākha in the year 1261 and the second, on Friday, the dark fortnight of Vaiśākha in the same year. Both the years, which are given only in figures, are to be referred to the Vikrama era. Calculating the corres- ponding Christian dates accordingly for both the inscriptions, K. N. Dikshit, the editor of the inscriptions has shown that the true equivalent of the first of the grants is 22nd April, 1205 A.C. and that of the second is 6th May of the same year, according to the Southern Vikrama expired and taking the month to be amānta so far as the second date si concerned. Here we are also to note, as aptly remarked by him, that here we have instances of Northern Indian epigraphical dates calculated as southern expired Vikrama years with amānta months.¹ Thus the second grants was issued two weeks later.

Qutb-ud-din Aibak’s invasion of the fort Kālañjar, during the last days of the Chandēlla king Paramardin, in 1202 A.C. is well-known; and it is also known that Paramardin died a natural death during this invasion. Aibak succeeded in capturing the fort and subsequently directed his invasion on Mahōbā, which too was captured. This has been taken by some scholars to hold that Mahōbā and the surrounding regions were no longer part of the Chandēlla dominions.² Vincent Smith also observed that “the history of the Chandēlla dynasty, as one of the powers of Northern India, ends in 1203 A. D., and that Trailōkyavarman succeeded his father as a mere local chieftain, holding the eastern part of the ancestral kingdom of Jējākabhukti.”³ But it is clear from the present inscriptions that shortly after the catastrophe, Paramardin’s son. Trailōkyavarman, rescued the country from the grip of the Muslims. He drove away the Muslim officers from both these places and the surrounding region, following them up to Kakaḍadaha, where an encounter appears to have taken place and his general Rāüta Pāpē seems to have lost his life in it. It is also significant, as remarked by Dikshit, “that the claim should be assumed over the place within two years of its loss”; and here we are also to note that in the Dhurēṭi copper-plate record, dated 1212 A.C., Trailōkyavarman is mentioned as the sole lord of Kālañjara,⁴ and thus the paramount sovereign of the whole region of Bundelkhand. In one of the inscriptions of his successor he is also eulogised as a “veritable Vishṇu in lifting up the earth immersed in the ocean formed by the stream of the Turushkas.”⁵ All these references along with the paramount titles claimed by him in the present inscriptions, go well to indicate that Trailōkyavarman was not a mere local chief, as held by Smith and others, but a paramount lord of his ancestral dominions, and that he also raised the prestige of his house by clearing off the temporary flood of the Muslim invasion. The restoration of the Chandēlla rule in the region may be dated between 1202 A.C., when Aibak attacked Kālañjara, and 1205 A.C., the year of the present records, which furnish the earliest date for Trailōkyavarman.

Each of the inscriptions ends with a verse speaking highly of making donations, followed by the sign-manual of the king. The engraver’s name is not mentioned in either.

Of the geographical places mentioned in the inscriptions, Kālañjara (l. 5), is, as we have often seen, the well-known fortress in the Hamīrpur District of Uttar Pradesh ; and all the other places have been identified by Dikshit in his article. Thus, Vaḍavāḍa the place of encampment
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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XVI, p. 273. According to the calculations made by him, the date of the second grant also shows its equivalent to be 19th of March, 1204 A.C., following the Northern Vikrama expired, if we take the month pūrṇimānta, which too was a Friday. But I agree with him in rejecting this solu¬tion in view of the fact that the two grants must have been recorded almost simultaneously. His rejection of this date appears to be justified in view of the consideration that both the grants which were issued by the same king to the same donee and with the same object in view, should have been dated according to one and the same system of counting.
² D. H. N. I., Vol. II. p. 722.
³ Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXVII, p. 146
⁴ Below, No. 142, l. 5.
⁵ See No. 145, text v. 7.