Indian Epigraphy c6.s5.9

c6.s5.9

In some cases, the fabricated element in the genealogy can be easily detected. In the records of Vajrahasta III (1038-70 A.D.) and Rājarāja I (1070-78 A.D.) and also in the earlier epigraphs of Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga (1078-1147 A.D.), Vajrahasta III of the Imperial Gaṅga dynasty of Orissa is represented as the grandson’s great-grandson of a king named Guṇamahārṇava (Guṇārṇava) of the Ātreya-gotra. But, in the later records of the family, including inscriptions belonging to the later years of Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga himself, the origin of the family is traced to the god Viṣṇu through his navel-born son Brahman, his mind-born son Atri, his eye-born son Candra (the Moon), his son Budha, his descendants Purūravas, Āyus, Nahuṣa, Yayāti and Turvasu—all known from epic and Puranic literature, and a host of apparently imaginary personages standing between Turvasu and Guṇārṇava who was the progenitor of the family according to the earlier account, but is here represented as Guṇārṇava II. Names of Kolāhala, founder of Kolāhalapura in the Gaṅgavāḍi-viṣaya in Mysore, and his successors, some of whom are said to have migrated to Kaliṅga, are inserted before the reference to Guṇārṇava obviously in an attempt to connect the Gaṅgas of Orissa with those of Mysore, even though the latter claimed the Kāṇvāyana-gotra. The genealogy was fabricated on the basis of the *gotra* claimed by the Eastern Gaṅgas; but it also exhibits their eagerness to claim descent from the lunar dynasty and some connection with the god Viṣṇu, to whom Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga transferred his allegiance from Śiva during the latter part of his career.¹