South Indian Inscriptions

KALCHURI OF TRIPURI

cause of Bhōja II and succeeded in placing him on the throne of Kanauj. This prince, however, ruled only for a short time; for, we find Mahīpāla I succeeding him within two or three years of his accession.¹ It is, therefore, doubtful if Kōkalla’s achievement in this case would at all be glorified by his successors as the erection of a column of victory in the north. Besides, there does not seem to be sufficient evidence to prove that there was a war of succession. Bhōja II is known only from one record, namely, the Asiatic Society of Bengal plate (dated V. 988) of Vināyakapāla, who is described therein as meditating on his feet. If Vināyakapāla is identical with Mahīpala, as is generally held,² it looks strange that he should reverentially mention his predecessor Bhōja II, whom he is said to have dethroned. Besides, it is doubtful if Kōkalla I was living at the time of this supposed war of succession. As we have seen, he was fairly advanced in age in 880 A.C., as his son Śankaragana was then sufficiently grown up to take the field against Vijayāditya III. It is, therefore, doubtful if he lived to meddle in the matter of succession to the Pratīhāra throne thirty years later. As shown below,³ his grandson Yuvarājadēva I was a contemporary of Mahīpāla, and he was preceded by two other princes on the Chēdi throne. Kōkalla, therefore, seems to have died some time during the reign of the Pratīhāra king Mahēndrapāla. The Bhōja whom he rendered help must consequently be identified with Bhōja I.

When did Bhōja I require the help of the Kalachuri king ? This must plainly have been in the early part of his reign when he had to contend against the mighty Dēvapāla of Bengal (circa 810-855 A.C.). We know that Rāmabhadra, the father of Bhōja, was a weak king. That he lost a large part of his kingdom is clear from the Barah plate of Bhōja I, which confirms a grant in the Kālañjara mandala which had been interrupted during the reign of Rāmabhadra,⁴ evidently due to the inroads of Dēvapāla. According to the Monghyr plates, the elephants of this Pāla king reached the Vindhyas and his cavalry
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¹The last known date of Mahēndrapāla īs V. 964 (907-8 A.C.), mentioned in the Sīyadōni stone inscription. He may, therefore, have closed his reign about 910 A.C. The earliest known date of Mahīpāla is Ś. 836 (914 A.C.), furnished by the Haddālā plates. So Bhōja II could have reigned only for two or three years.
² This identification is open to doubt; for, Mahīpāla nowhere in his inscriptions mentions Bhōja as his predecessor. It is more likely that Mahēndrapāla had three sons Mahīpāla, Bhōja II and Vināyakapāla, who succeeded him one after another. As Mahāmahōpādhyāya G. S. Ojha has pointed out, the dates of Mahīpāla and Vināyakapāla do not overlap. Besides, it seems clear from Āryakshēmīśvara’s Chandrakauśika that Mahīpāla bore the name of Kārttikēya; for, the poet refers to his patron as Mahīpāla in the prologue of his play and as Kārttikēya in the last verse of the fifth Act. Mahīpāla is, therefore, not likely to have been known also by the name of Vināyakapāla or Hērambapāla. On the other hand, Vināyakapāla seems to have been a younger brother of Mahīpāla, as Ganēśa was of Kārttikēya. The only possible objection to this view is that unless we identify Mahīpāla with Vināyakapāla (or Hērambapāla), the statement in the Sīyadōnī inscription that Dēvapāla meditated on the feet of Mahīpāla would conflict with that in the Khajuraho inscription of Dhanga that Dēvapāla was the son of Hērambapāla. Ojha tries to solve this difficulty by taking the two Dēvapālas as distinct persons. He says that Dēvapāla who is called Hayapati (lord of horses) in the Khajuraho inscription could not have been a Pratīhāra prince as Hayapati was never the accepted title of the Pratī- hāras of Kanauj. We have, however, to remember that according to the testimony of the Arab writer Sulaiman, the Pratīhāras maintained a fine cavalry, and in contemporary records Bhōja is described as having an army of excellent and controllable horses (sad-vaśya-vāb-ānvitah); Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, p. 184. The Kudlur plates of the Ganga king Mārasimha state that the Rāshtrakūta king Krishna III crowned Mārasimha king before proceeding to the north to conquer Aśvapati who was proud of his horses (A. R. A. S. M. for 1921, p. 23). This passage also seems to use Aśvapati as a title of the Gurjara-Pratīhāras. Perhaps the word sūnu, used in the Khajuraho inscription to state the relation of Dēvapāla to Hērambapāla, is employed in the wider sense of a nephew, just as tāta (father) sometimes denotes ‘an uncle’.
³ See below, p. lxxviii.
⁴ Ep. Ind., Vol. XIX, p. 18.