South Indian Inscriptions

EARLY KALACHURIS OF MAHISHMATI

Soon after his accession, Buddharāja found himself involved in a fight on the southern frontier of his kingdom. Several Chālukya inscriptions mention his defeat by the Early Chālukya king Mangalēśa or Mangalarāja. We learn, for instance, from Mangalēśa’s Mahākūta inscription¹ (602 A. C.) that Mangalēśa, having set his heart on the conquest of the northern regions, defeated king Buddha and captured his whole treasure. The Nerur plates² add further details that this Buddharāja was the son of Sankaragana and was possessed of the power of elephants, horses and footsoldiers. Finally, the Aihōlē stone inscription of Pulakēśin II describes in a figurative language that Mangalēśa, ‘in that house which was the battlefield, took in marriage the damsel viz., the Fortune of the Katachchuris, having scattered the gathering gloom, viz., the array of elephants (of the adversary), with hundreds of bright lamps which were the swords of his followers.’³ These references leave no doubt about the identity of Buddharāja. Mangalēśa obtained a decisive victory over him. Buddharāja was completely routed and fled away, leaving his whole treasure behind which was captured by Mangalēśa. The latter could not, however, follow up the victory; for, just then Svāmirāja of the Chālikya family, a redoubtable warrior who had attained victory in eighteen battles and who was probably ruling in Rēvatīdvīpa⁴(modern Rēdi) in South Konkan as a feudatory of the Chālukyas, rose in rebellion, seemingly at the instigation of Buddharāja. Mangalēśa had, therefore, to abandon his original plan of making an expedition of conquest in the north, and rushed to Konkan to chastise the rebellious chieftain. In the fight which ensued, he killed Svāmirāja and by way of thanksgiving made the grant of a village in South Konkan on the twelfth tithi of the bright fortnight of Karttika after observing a fast on the preceding day. The Nērur plates, in which this grant is recorded, are not dated, but the Mahākūta inscription, in which also the victory over Buddharāja is mentioned, is dated in the fifth regnal year, the cyclic year being Siddhārtha. As Fleet has shown, the inscription was probably incised in 601-2 A. C. Its contents show that it was put up soon after the defeat of Buddharāja,⁵ which may, therefore, be dated approximately in 601 A. C.
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¹ Ind. Ant., Vol. XIX, pp. 17-18. R. G. Bhandarkar, who did not accept Fleet’s reading of the date in 1. 15 of the Mahākūta inscription, placed Mangalēśa’s accession in 591 A. C. (E. H. D., P. 69). In the Mahakuta inscription the reading rājya-panchama-śrīvarshē pravartamānē in 1 .15 is clear. So the inscription belongs to the fifth year of Mangalēśa’s reign. If we accept Bhandarkar’s view that he came to the throne in 591 A. C., his fifth year would fall in 595-596 A. C. But the Ābhōna plates show that in 595-596 A. C. Śankaragana, not Buddharāja, was reigning. Fleet’s view about the accession of Mangalēśa presents no chronological difficulty.
² Ind. Ant., Vol. VII, pp. 161 ff.
³ Ep. Ind., Vol. VI, p.8.
⁴The Nerur plates which mention the defeat and death of Svāmirāja at the hands of Mangalēśa, do not explicitly say that he was ruling over Rēvatīdvīpa, but they state that the event occurred after the defeat of Buddharāja. The Aihōiē inscription describes Mangalēśa’s capture of the island of Rēvatī after the defeat of the Kalachuri king. Svāmirāja was, therefore, probably the ruler of the island of Rēvati, modern Rēdi. Nerur is only 16 miles south of Rēdi. The village Kundivātaka granted by the plates is probably identical with the modern Kudāl, about 3 ½ m. north-east of Nērur. After killing Svāmirāja, Mangalēśa seems to have Placed the island in charge of his relative Satyāśraya Dhruvarāja Indravarman, who was the ruler of the adjoining territory. See his Goa plates issued from the Revatīdvīpa in the twentieth year of his reign. J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. X, p. 365.
⁵Fleet translates Kalatsūri-dhanam sva-griha-dēva-drōnyām gatam in the Mahākūta inscription by ‘the wealth of the Kalachuris has been expended in the idol procession of the temple of our own god.’ The sense, however, seems to be 'the wealth of the Kalachuris has been deposited in the treasury (drōnī) of the temple of our own god.’ Mangalēśa seems to have assigned the ten villages mentioned in the inscription to the god Makutēśvaranātha, having acquired them with the wealth of the Kalachuri king as well as that donated by his father and eldest brother.