Indian Epigraphy c15.t19.5

c15.t19.5

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.