The Rashtrakutas and their Times c20.116

c20.116

mentions the grant of a horse-chariot and an elephant chariot by a dancing girl to a local God. Two records, falling outside our proper period, viz. Managoli inscription, dated 1161 A.D., (85) and the Siddhapur inscription, dated 1158 A.D., (86) refer to damanāropaṇa and pavitrāropaṇa ceremonies that were performed in the months of Chaitra and S'rāvaṇa respectively. It is not unlikely that these ceremonies were performed in our period as well, since one of them viz. damanāropaṇa is mentioned by Alberuni as a popular festival in Chaitra, when Vāsudeva was swung to and fro in a swing. (87) In his Smṛtikaustubha, Anantadeva prescribes the celebration of damanāropaṇa in Chaitra and pavitrāropaṇa in S'rāvaṇa. (88) We thus get a proof of the actual prevalence of some of the ceremonies described by later writers in our period. The view advanced earlier in this chapter, that some of the new ceremonies and rituals that find literary recognition in the Nibandhas of later period were already getting popular in our period, is thus not altogether without a foundation.