South Indian Inscriptions

KALCHURI OF TRIPURI

the Ederu plates of Amma¹ tell us that Vijayāditya frightened Krishna and Sankila and burnt their city completely. The Pithāpuram inscription of Mallapadēva² states that Vijayāditya III burnt Chakrakūta and terrified Sankila, residing in Kiranapura and joined by Krishna. The Maliapundi inscription of Ammaraja II³ gives the further detail that this Sankila was the lord of the excellent Dāhala (country). He was, therefore, a Kalachuri prince and is evidently identical with Sankuka⁴ (called also Śankaragana in the Kardā plates), the son of Kōkalla, whose younger sister was married to Krishna II. Success seems at first to have attended the arms of Vijayāditya; for, he is said to have burnt Chakrakūta and also Kiranapura where Krishna II and Sankila were then encamped. The former of these two places has been identified with the central portion of the Bastar District⁵ and the latter with a place of that name in the Balaghat District of Madhya Pradesh.⁶ Pāndaranga, the general of Vijayāditya, pressed as far as Achalapura in Berar, which he is said to have stormed and burnt.⁷ Later, on however, Krishna II won notable successes as implied in the Kalachuri records. The Eastern Chālukyas themselves admit in their records that on the death of Vijayāditya III, their country was overrun by the forces of a kinsman of the Ratta king⁸ and that the diadem of Chālukya-Bhīma I, the successor of Vijayāditya III, was struck at by Vallabha.⁹ These wars must have been waged during the period 880-890 A.C. Sankila or Śankaragana, though described in some Chālukya records as the lord of the Dāhala country, was probably the crown prince at the time and was sent by his father to help his son-in-law in his wars with the Eastern Chālukyas.¹⁰

Another son of Kōkalla I, named Arjuna, seems to have helped Krishna II’s son Jagattunga with a large army probably during his wars with the Gurjara-Pratīhāras on the northern frontier of the Rāshtrakūta kingdom.¹¹

The identification of Bhoja, the second price helped by Kokalla I, is more difficult. Kielhorn was of opinion that his Bhoja was the first prince of that name in the GurjaraPratihara dynasty,¹² who flourished from circa 835 to 885 A.C. Some scholars¹³ have, however, latterly advanced the view that the protégé of Kokalla I was Bhoja II, the son and successor of Mahendrapala and grandson of Bhoja I. According to these scholars, there was a war of succession after the death of Mahēndrapāla. Kōkalla espoused the _______________

¹S. I. I., Vol. I, p. 39. Fleet and Hultzsch rendered Sańkila by ‘a fire-brand’, but the latter afterwards corrected his mistake in Ep. Ind., Vol. IV, p. 226.
² Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 233.
³ Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 51.
⁴ Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, p. 265.
⁵ Ep. Ind., Vol. IX, pp. 178 ff.
⁶ Altekar, Rāshtrakūtas, etc., p. 95.
⁷ A. R. S. I. E. (1923), pp. 61 and 98. Achalapura was probably the capital of a feudatory Rāshtrakūta family which at this time owed allegiance to the Imperial Rāśhtrakūtas of Mānyakhēta. See also below, p. lxxxiii.
⁸ S. I. I., Vol. I, p. 40. The inscription has the word dāyāda (meaning ‘an agnate’) referring to this kinsman. He seems, therefore, to have been a Rāshtrakūta prince, perhaps of the Gujarat branch. It is noteworthy that the Masulipatam grant of Chālukya-Bhīma I mentions his defeat of a king of Lāta who was an ally of Krishnavallabha. A. R. S. I. E. (1914), p. 84. If dāyāda was used in a wider sense, it might refer to Śankaragana.
⁹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XVIII, p. 231.
¹⁰ Perhaps Śankaragana had ascended the Kalachuri throne before these wars came to a close.
¹¹ See v. 16 of Cambay plates of Gōvinda IV. Ep. Ind. Vol. VII, p. 38. The verse occurs also in the Sāngli plates of the same king. Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, p. 250.
¹² Ep. Ind., Vol. I, p. 253.
¹³ See, e. g., Altekar, Rāshtrakūtas, etc., p. 101; Banerji, Haibayas of Tripurī, etc., p. 4; Tripathi, History of Kanauj, pp. 255-56.