Indian Epigraphy c15.t19: 7. Bhauma-Kara Era.

Indian Epigraphy c15.t19

Language: English

7. Bhauma-Kara Era.

The beginning of the era used by the Bhauma-Karas of Orissa, eighteen of whom reigned for about two centuries, probably coincided with the first regnal year of the first king of the family while the latest known ruler, viz. Dharmamahādevī, ended her reign not long after the year 200 of the era.¹ The feudatory families using the same era must have originally owed complete allegiance to the Bhauma-Karas, but gradually became semi-independent with the growth of their power.² Unfortunately, there was so long no clue to determine with precision the date either of any of the Bhauma-Kara kings themselves or of their feudatories except on grounds of palaeography.

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¹ For the Bhauma-Kara inscriptions, see B. Misra, *Orissa under the Bhauma Kings*; IHQ, Vol. XXI, pp. 213 ff.; *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XVIII, pp. 211 ff.; Vol. XXIX, pp. 79 ff., 210 ff.; 220 ff.

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² In this connection we have to refer especially to the following inscriptions : (1) Dhenkanal plate (cf. Bhandarkar's List, No. 1756) of Jayasiṁha of which the date may be year 128; (2) Jamdapir plate (ibid., No. 1487) of Raṇabhañja of Khijjinga-koṭṭa of the year 288 which seems to be a mistake for 188; (3) Adipur plate (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXV, p. 137) of Narendrabhañja and Raṇabhañja of Khijjinga-koṭṭa of the year 293 which seems to be a mistake for 193; (4) Talmul plate (Bhandarkar's List, No. 2043) of Dhruvānanda of the year 293 (which is a mistake for 193 as is now clearly demostrated by the recently discovered Daspalla Plate of Devānanda II, dated 184), etc. Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVII, p. 327, note 1; Vol. XXIX, pp. 183 ff. The confusion between the 100 (*lu*) and 200 (*lū*) symbols is due to that between the medial signs of *u* and *ū* in Orissan epigraphs (cf. Vol. op. cit., XXVII, p. 326).

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Kielhorn was inclined to assign the Ganjam plates of Daṇḍimahādevī,³ one of which is dated in the year 180, to about the thirteenth century A.D. on paleographical grounds. But the imperial Gaṅga monarch Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga (1078-1147 A.D.) conquered the Puri-Cuttack region about the beginning of the twelfth century, and it is impossible to place the rule of the imperial Bhauma-Karas in the same region after that date. It is again certain that Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga conquered the Puri-Cuttack area from the Somavaṁśīs, and this fact proves that the Bhauma-Karas must have flourished before the Somavaṁśī occupation of lower Orissa. Thus Bhauma-Kara rule in the Puri-Cuttack region must be assigned to a date considerably earlier than 1100 A.D. Moreover, the Bhauma-Karas throughout used numerical symbols instead of figures, and this fact suggests that their rule did not survive long after 1000 A.D.

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³ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. VI, pp. 137 ff.

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Sylvain Lévi suggested that the Bhauma-Kara king Śubhākara I should be identified with the Buddhist (Mahāyānist) king of Wu-ch'a (Oḍra=Orissa), who sent, according to Chinese sources, an autographed manuscript to the Chinese emperor in 795 A.D.¹ The name of this Buddhist ruler of Orissa is given in Chinese translation as ‘the fortunate monarch who does what is pure, the lion’, which was believed to suggest an original Śubhakarasiṃha (or °kesarin). But there was no such name in the family in question. R. C. Majumdar is inclined to identify ‘the fortunate monarch who does what is pure, the lion’, flourishing in Orissa 795 A.D., with the Bhauma-Kara king Śivakara I Unmaṭṭasiṃha, father of the above Śubhākara I.² These identifications would place the two centuries of Bhauma-Kara rule roughly in the period 750-950 A.D. or 775-975 A.D. Bhandarkar³ suggests the identification of the Bhauma-Kara era with the Harṣa era of 606 A.D. According to his suggestion, the Bhauma-Karas flourished roughly in the period 606-806 A.D. It must, however, be admitted that the palaeography of the Bhauma-Kara records clearly suggests a date later than that implied by Bhandarkar’s theory⁴ and there is now evidence to show that the Bhauma-Kara kings flourished in a later age.

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¹ Ibid., Vol. XV, pp. 363-64.

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² Cf. *Ancient India*, Banaras, 1952, p. 410. The name of *Paramasaugata* Śubhākara III surnamed Simhadhvaja (i.e. the lion-banner) has so far not been mentioned in this connection.

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³ Cf. Bhandarkar’s List, Nos. 1404, 1413, 1416, etc.

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⁴ Bhandarkar was conscious of this difficulty and that is why he read the symbol for 100 in the Bhauma-Kara records in most cases as 200. Misra accepted Bhandarkar’s identification of the eras, but read the symbol correctly.

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The records of the Bhañja kings of Dhṛtipura and Vañjulvaka, who apparently owed allegiance to the Bhauma-Karas, bear dates generally in the regnal years of particular kings. We know that king Raṇabhañja of this family flourished about the third quarter of the tenth century A.D.⁵ The successors of Raṇabhañja, viz. his sons, Neṭṭabhañja Kalyāṇakalasa I and Digbhañja, and Digbhañja’s son Śilābhañja II and grandson Vidyādharabhañja, had all very short reigns, so that a Brāhmaṇa named Bhaṭṭa Stambhadeva is known to have served all the four kings, while a goldsmith named Durgadeva not only served all of them but also Neṭṭabhañja Kalyāṇakalasa II, son of Vidyādharabhañja. Considering the fact that the active period of the lives of Stambhadeva and Durgadeva probably covered about half a century, the reign of Neṭṭabhañja Kalyāṇakalasa II may be assigned to the first quarter of the eleventh century A.D. Raṇabhañja flourished earlier than, or was an earlier contemporary of, the Somavaṁśī monarch Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I (c. 970-1000 A.D.) who conquered the Dhṛtipura region and pushed the former’s successors to the Vañjulvaka area.

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⁵ See IHQ, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 225 ff. Raṇabhañja’s father-in-law was the Kadamba chief Niyārṇava or Niyāṇama who was the grandfather of Dharmakheḍi, known from his records dated in the Śaka year 917 (995 A.D.) and the Gaṅga year 520 (1016-18 A.D.).

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The Daspalla plates¹ of Śatrubhañja of Vañjulvaka are dated in the year 198 of apparently the Bhauma-Kara era. This Śatrubhañja was the son of Śilābhañja (who may not have ruled) and the great-grandson (possibly a mistake for ‘grandson’) of Vidyādharabhañja. King Śatrubhañja ruling in the year 198 of the Bhauma-Kara era may be assigned roughly to the second quarter of the eleventh century A.D. The date of his inscription (written in numerical figures instead of symbols) does not appear to be later than the middle of the eleventh century. In the first place, certain dates in the ninth and tenth decades of the second century of the era in question are written with numerical symbols instead of figures and the use of such symbols does not appear to have survived long after the end of the tenth century. Secondly, lower Orissa comprising the major part of the dominions of the Bhauma-Karas, who ruled from Jajpur in the Cuttack District for about two centuries (i.e. down to about the year 200 of their era, so that the date of Śatrubhañja’s charter in the year 198 fell about the latest days of Bhauma-Kara rule) was included in the empire of the Somavaṁśīs during the rule of Caṇḍihara Yayāti Mahā- śivagupta III (c. 1026-60 A.D.) and his son Uddyotakesarin Mahābhavagupta IV (c. 1060-80 A.D.).¹ There is little doubt that the Bhauma-Karas were supplanted by the Somavaṁśīs about the second quarter of the eleventh century A. D. and that the epoch of their era falls in the first half of the ninth century.

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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIX, pp. 189 ff.

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¹ IHQ, Vol. XXII, pp. 300 ff.

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The above conclusion is supported by the two Baud plates of Pṛthvī-mahādevī alias Tribhuvana-mahādevī II, dated in the year 158.² The inscriptions show that this Bhauma-Kara queen was the daughter of king Svabhātuṅga of the Somavaṁśa of Kosala (South Kosala). The same Somavaṁśī king is mentioned in the Balangir Museum plates of Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I (c. 970-1000 A.D.),³ which suggest that the said king enjoyed the additional name Svabhātuṅga. The Bhauma-Kara queen Pṛthvī-mahādevī alias Tribhuvana-mahādevī II ruling in the year 158 of the Bhauma-Kara era was thus the daughter of the Somavaṁśī king Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I Svabhātuṅga of South Kosala and flourished about the end of the tenth century A.D. Supposing that the queen was ruling more or less contemporaneously with her father, the beginning of the Bhauma-Kara era may be assingned roughly to the first half of the ninth century A.D.

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² Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIX, pp. 210 ff., 220 ff.

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³ JAS, Letters, Vol. XIX, 1953, pp. 117 ff.

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It is clear from the Baud plates that queen Pṛthvī-mahādevī ignored the claims of the sons of her husband's brother and this probably led to a struggle between herself and her husband's relations who ultimately deprived her of the throne. There is some evidence to suggest that Pṛthvī-mahādevī succeeded in occupying the Bhauma-Kara throne with the active help of her father, Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I, whose success against the Bhauma-Karas' feudatories at Dhṛtipura has already been referred to above. The early Somavaṁśīs claimed to have been the rulers of Kosala and are known to have held sway over the Patna-Sonepur region in the upper valley of the Mahānadī.¹ But a charter of Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I is known to record the grant of a village in Dakṣiṇa Toṣalā (the Cuttack-Puri-Ganjam region forming an integral part of the Bhauma-Kara dominions) in his ninth regnal year.² The village granted by this charter was Candagrāma in the Maraḍa-viṣaya, the names being identified respectively with those of modern Chandgan about 32 miles to the south-east of Cuttack and Marada-Hariharpur in the Cuttack District. The grant of a village in coastal Orissa by Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I seems to be connected with his daughter's accession to the Bhauma-Kara throne. It was probably made about the time when the Kosalan forces defeated the Bhauma-Kara antagonists of Pṛthvī-mahādevī and raised her to the throne. In that case, the ninth regnal year of Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I may not be far removed from year 158 of the Bhauma-Kara era, when queen Pṛthvī-mahādevī issued her charters. As the ninth regnal year of the Somavaṁśī king may be roughly assigned to 978 A. D., the Bhauma-Kara era seems to have started from a date not much later than 820 A. D., that is to say, about the middle of the first half of the ninth century A.D.

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¹ Cf. the places mentioned in the Somavaṁśī charter in Misra, *Dynasties of Medieval Orissa*, pp. 66 ff.

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² *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. III, pp. 351-55.

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The Daspalla plates of Śatrubhañja give the following details of the date : year 198 [of the Bhauma-Kara era], Viṣuva-saṅkrānti, Sunday, Pañcamī, Mṛgaśirā-nakṣatra. The combination is rather rare and would suit very few dates in a century. Considering the period in question, the date would suit only the 23rd March 1029 A.D. The Bhauma-Kara era thus appears to have started from 831 A.D.