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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI The inscription belongs to the reign of Vikramasiṁha, who was a member of the Ḍubkuṇḍ branch of the Kachchhapaghāta Dynasty. The object of it is to record the construction of a Jaina temple, evidently the same at which the stone bearing the record was found, by some private persons (vv. 31-35), and some grants made in favour of it by the illustrious Mahārājādhirāja Vikramasiṁha (ll. 54-57). The date of the record, as given in the last line, in figures, is Monday, the third of the bright half of Bhādrapada of the (Vikrama) year 1145, which, taking the year to be Chaitrādi expired, regularly corresponds to Monday, 21st August, 1088 A. C.1 The inscription falls into four parts as marked by the engraver himself with a sign some-what resembling the Nāgarī akshara chha at the end of each. The first of these parts (vv. 7-19) mentions the genealogy of Vikramasiṁha and his ancestors, the second (vv. 20-24) gives an account of the builder of the temple ; the third (vv. 25-35) names some sages ; and the fourth (prose 11. 54-60) records the donations made by the king. To note the contents of the record, it begins with six introductory verses which either invoke the blessings of or praise (the Jaina Tīrthaṅkaras) Ṛishabhasvāmin, Śāntinātha, Chandraprabha and Jina (Mahāvīra), and the sage Gōtama and last of all, Śrutadēvī, i.e., the goddess of eloquence or learning, as the persons who put up the inscription were devoted to Jainism.
With verse 7, begins the description of the pedigree of the ancestors of the ruling king Vikramasiṁha. The first name introduced here is that of Yuvarāja, who was the originator of the Kachchhapaghāta house (vv. 7-9). Yuvarāja’s son was Arjuna2, and his son was Abhimanyu, (vv. 10-13), whose son again was Vijayarāja (v. 14). Vijayarāja had a son of the name of Vikramasiṁha whose stronghold (pura) was known as Ḍōbha,3 which was then a flourishing place noted for its trade (vv. 15-20). The whole of the description of these princes is conventional and devoid of historical interest, except what is stated in v. 8, that Arjuna, as an ally or feudatory of Vidyādhara, killed Rājyapāla “by a shower of arrows piercing his neck-bones”, and in v. 11 that his son Abhimanyu’s skill “in the marvelous management of horses and chariots and it the use of powerful weapons was highly spoken of by the highly intelligent and illustrious king Bhōja”. To take up the first of these statements, we find that Vidyādhara, whose ally Arjuna is mentioned in the record, was evidently the homonymous Chandēlla king ; and Rājyapāla is no other than the Gurjara king of Kanauj, as we well know ; and thus the Kachchapaghāta Arjuna was a contemporary of both these rulers who flourished in the first quarter of the eleventh century A.C. The Mohammadan sources go to tell us that when Sultan Mahmūd, after his victory of Kanauj in 409 A.H., i.e., in 1018 A.C., returned to his country, Vidyādhara killed Rājyapāla in a battle which resulted in the latter’s flight and surrender of his territory to the Musalmans.4 Thus the statement of our inscription is corroborated by the Muslim account, adding to our knowledge that it was Arjuna who actually killed Rājyapāla of Kanauj, as a feudatory of the Chandēlla king. With reference to the other statement of our inscription which alludes to Arjuna’s son
Abhimanyu’s military skill as highly spoken of by Bhōjadēva, Dr. D. C. Ganguly suggests that
Abhimanyu entered into an alliance with the Paramāra Bhōja on the eve of the latter’s northern
expedition,5 whereas Dr. H. C. Ray takes the statement to interpret that after the death of | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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