The Rashtrakutas and their Times c10.s1.42

c10.s1.42

Amoghavarsha's reign was long, but it was not brilliant from the military point of view. During his rule Gangavāḍi and Malva were lost to the empire. The defeat of the Vengi ruler Guṇaga Vijayāditya was the only substantial military achievement. Amoghavarsha did not, like his father and grandfather, intervene in the politics of northern India, although there were provocations enough for such an intervention. The frequent internal revolts that broke during his reign left him no time to undertake an expedition in the north. He does not, besides, seem to have been a military leader or a lover of war, like his father and grand-father. It was rather peace, literature and religion that attracted him. He was either the author or the inspirer of *Kavirājamārga*, the earliest work in Canarese on poetics. He was a patron of literature; Nāgavarman II (c. 1150 A.D.), Keśirāja (c. 1225 A.D.) and Bhaṭṭakaḷaṅka (c. 1600 A.D.) all agree in stating that Amoghavarsha was very liberal to men of letters.⁽⁴⁸⁾ His Sanjan plates also aver that he was more liberal than the famous Vikramāditya himself.⁽⁴⁹⁾ In religion Amoghavarsha had great leaning towards Jainism. Jinasena, the author of *Ādipurāṇa*, claims that he was the chief preceptor of Amoghavarsha.⁽⁵⁰⁾ *Gaṇitasārasaṃgraha*, a Jain mathematical work by Mahāvīrācārya, written in the reign of Amoghavarsha, describes him as a follower of *Syādyāda*. Though there can be thus no doubt that Amoghavarsha was immensely impressed by the gospel of Mahāvīra, he had not altogether ceased to believe in the tenets and beliefs of Hinduism. He was a devotee of Mahālakṣmī and the Sanjan record states that he had on one occasion cut off and offered one of the fingers of his left hand to that Goddess, in order to ward off a public calamity. That this is not a cock-and-bull story is proved by the unexpected confirmation of the Sanjan record by the *Karṇāṭakas'abdānuśāsanam* of Bhaṭṭakaḷaṅka, where we are told that Nṛpatuṅga excelled Bali twice, Dadhīchi three times, and Jīmūtavāhana a hundred times and Sibi certainly a thousand times.⁽⁵¹⁾ These comparisons remind us of the wording of v. 47 of the Sanjan plates, where also the sacrifice of his finger by Amoghavarsha is compared to the sacrifice of Jīmūtavāhana, S'ibi and Dadhīchi, and shown to be immensely superior to theirs.