South Indian Inscriptions

SOCIETY

Siddhānta. At the royal court, there was sometimes a competition among astronomers about the prediction of the correct time of an eclipse. The successful astronomer was rewarded with a grant of land.¹ Some Brāhmanas left the worldly life and took orders in some religious sect like the Saiva and the Pasupata.²

From very ancient times the Brāhmanas have been allowed to adopt the profession of a Kshatriya if they are unable to earn a living by teaching, officiating as a priest or acceptance of gifts.³ In our records there are some instances of the Brāhmanas occupying influential positions in the State. The castes of royal officers are rarely mentioned in landgrants. So the information is very meagre. Still we find that in two cases the Brāhmanas acted as Dutakas of landgrants.⁴ The office of the Dūtaka was a very high one⁵ and was held by State functionaries of the rank of Mahapīlupati and Mahābalādhikrita. Some Brāhmanas are known to have filled with distinction the office of the Prime Minister also. Bhākamisra, Sōmēśvara, Purushottamma and Gangādhara were some of the learned and capable Prime Ministers of the Later Kalachuris.⁶ They are highly eulogised in our records. Some of them distinguished themselves on the battlefield also and won important victories for their masters. Others by their diplomacy saved the State in times of economic and political crises and restored peace and prosperity to the country. Some Brahmanas are mentioned as the authors of royal prasastis.⁷ Their compositions reveal no mean poetic talent.

The Brāhmanas generally married within their caste, but marriages of the anulōma type, in which they took to wife a girl from a lower caste, were not unknown. Rājaśēkhara, who was a Brāhmana of the Yayavara family, married Avantisundarī of the Chauhāna lineage. This was probably not a solitary instance.

The Kshatriyas, like the Brahmanas, enjoyed a high social status. Many of the rulers in the earlier as well the later period belonged to this caste. The Chalukyas and the Kalachuris were known as Kshatriyas. The former claimed to have descended from Hārītī and mentioned their Mānayya gōtra in their land-grants.⁸ The Sēndrakas, who were matrimonially connected with them, also probably belonged to the same caste. The Kalachuris called themselves Haihayas, i.e., descendants of Kārtavīrya Arjuna. The latter was born in the family of the Moon. The Kalachuris, therefore, claimed to be of the famous lunar race.⁹ They had matrimonial relations with all the principal Kshatriya families of the age, viz.,
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¹ No. 83, 11. 23 ff.
² No. 64, 1. 17; No. 58, 1. 7.
³ Baudhāyana Dharma Sūtra, II, 2, 69-70.
⁴ No. 2, 1. 8 mentions Nannabhatti, and No. 24, 1. 49, Bhatta śrī-Dēiyaka as Dūtakas.
⁵ The Dūtaka communicated the royal order about a grant to the office of the Sandhivigrahika. Cf. rāj-ājñā-prada used instead of the usual dutaka in the Ponnuturu plates of Samantavarman; Ep. Ind., VoI. XXVII, p. 220. The Dūtaka of No. 12 was a Mahāpīlupati, and that of No. 14 was a Mahābalādhikrita.
⁶ See No. 42, 11 . 3 ff. and 6 ff.; No. 90, 11. 15 ff.; NO. 100, 11. 17 ff.
⁷ No. 44, 11. 24-25.
⁸ No. 27, 11. 2-3.
⁹ D. R. Bhandarkar regarded the Kalachuris as of foreign extraction, because, in the Harivamśa and the Vishnupurāna, the Haihayas, when they seized the kingdom of the Indian king Bāhu, were assisted by the Śakas, Yavanas, Paradas and Khasas. The argument has no force; for, though the Haihayas may have taken the help of some foreign tribes, they do not thereby themselves become Mlechchhas. If they had invaded India from the North-west after the Kushanas as supposed by Bhandarkar, we would have found traces of their rule in the north-western parts of the country, where they may be supposed to have first established themselves. But we do not get any records of the Kalachuris in North India till the 8th century A.C. For further discussion of this subject, see my presidential address in Section II of P. I. H. C., seventh session, pp. 157 ff.