The Rashtrakutas and their Times c7.s1.17

c7.s1.17

The earliest of these rulers is king Abhimanyu, one of whose grants (13) describes his great-grand-father Mānāṅka as the most prominent among the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. Mānāṅka's son was Devarāja, and grand-son Bhavishya, and the grantor Abhimanyu was a son of the latter. Unfortunately the grant is not dated, nor is its findspot known. On palaeographical grounds we can place it in the 7th century A.D. About the locality of the territory over which Abhimanyu was ruling, we can get some idea from the statement in the plates that he was gracing Mānapura by his presence, when he made the grant of village Uṇḍivāṭikā to the Śiva temple at Peṭhapāṅgārikā, which is recorded in the charter. Dr. Bhagwanlal's view that Mānapura is the same as Mānyakheṭa or modern Malkhed¹⁴ has to be rejected; for, if the later Rāṣṭrakūṭa capital was really known as Mānapura in the 7th century, it is difficult to understand why the epithet pura of Mānapura should have been changed into kheṭa, especially since this change was calculated to belittle the importance of the place. For, pura denotes a city or a capital, while kheṭa is used only in connection with small towns. Further, it must be remembered that Abhimanyu and his ancestors were petty rulers, and if we identify their Mānapura with Malkhed, their dominions, we shall have to suppose, were very extensive. For, Pāṅgārikā, the Śiva temple of which received the grant, has been identified by Hultzsch¹⁵ and Fleet¹⁶ with Pagārā, 4 miles north of Panchmarhi in Houshangabad district, C. P., and Uṇḍivāṭikā, the village given, with one of the two villages called Oontia in the same locality. Abhimanyu would thus be ruling over a kingdom at least 400 miles in length, which would hardly have been the case, since such a kingdom in the 7th century would have cut across the dominions of the early Chālukyas. Fleet's suggestion that Mānapura, which was probably founded by Mānāṅka, may be Mānapura in Malva, the chief town of Mānapura sub-division, 12 miles southwest of Mhow, seems more probable, for it is only about 100 miles west of the village granted.