Indian Epigraphy c15.t19.14

c15.t19.14

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.