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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
RELIGION Kalachuris from the 8th to the 12th century A.C. It received a great fillip during the reign of Yuvaraājadēva I, who, under the influence of his queen Nōhalā invited several Āchāryas of the Mattamayūra clan to the Chēdi country and built magnificent temples of Śiva and monasteries for them at Gurgi, Masaun, Chandrēhē, Bilhēri Bhēri-Ghāt and other places. As these Āchārya exercised a profound influence on the political and religious history of the period, it would not be out of place to give here a somewhat detailed account of this clan The earlier inscription of the Mattamayura clan, which was discovered at Ranod
in the foremen Gwalior state, was edited by Dr. Kielhorn in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I, pp.
351 ff. It gives the following earliest genealogy of the line. It is to be remembered that
the genealogy is spiritual, i.e., not from father to son, but from guru to disciple.
We learn from the inscription that when the king, the illustrious Avantivarman, who desired to be initiated in the Siava faith, heard of the great holiness of the sage Puran dara, he attempted to bring him to his own country. He himself went to Upendrapura where the sage was practicing penance, and with a great difficulty persuaded him to accede to his request. The sage founded a matha at Mattamayura, the capital of the king whom he initiated in the Saiva faith, and established another matha at Ranipadra (modern Ranod) The last Acharya mentioned in the genealogy, viz., Vyomasiva enlarged and repaired the matha, erected temples and excavated a magnificent tank at the same place. Another inscription of his line, discovered somewhere in the former Gwalior state and now deposited in the Gwalior Museum, gives the same genealogy as above, except for the Substitution of Rudrasiva for Amardakatirthanatha.1 It will be noticed that the personal names of the first four Acharyas in the genealogical list have not been given. The name of the fourth Acharya is thus known from the Gwalior Museum inscription. Again, this record carries the genealogy one generation further and mentions Patangasambhu as the disciple of Vyomasambhu.2
The Ranod inscription is undated; but on paæology grounds, Dr. Kielhorn referred it ot the end of the tenth or the beginning of the eleventh century A.C.3 the 1I am indebeted to Mr. M. B. Garde, late Director Archæolgy, Gwalior state, who first supplied
to me an account of this inscription Dr. D.R. Patil, the present Director of Archæology in Madhya Bharat,
has also obliged me by sending me an impression of it.
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