Indian Epigraphy c16.s2.55

c16.s2.55

⁴ The Kadamba king of the Malavalli inscription also calls himself *Dharma-Mahārājādhirāja* while the same title was assumed by Gaṅga Nītimārga Koṅgunivarma-Permanaḍi and his successors (cf. *Bomb. Gaz.*, Vol. I, Part ii, p. 303, note 3; p. 288, note 5). The title *Dharma-Mahārāja* is supposed to mean ‘a *Mahārāja* who, at the particular time of the record, was engaged in an act of religious merit’. The word *dharma* was sometimes affixed to the royal title by several kings of both North and South India. See *Select Inscriptions*, pp. 96, 211, 407, 437, 456. For its penetration into the land beyond the Bay of Bengal, see ibid., p. 473. Sometimes a crown-prince was called *Dharma-Yuvamahārāja* in South India (*Suc. Sāt. L. Dec.*, p. 207). We have also *Mahāvarāja* for *Yuvamahārāja* (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXII, p. 202, note 1).