Indian Epigraphy c15.t19.20

c15.t19.20

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.