The Rashtrakutas and their Times c8.68

c8.68

Mahārāṣṭra. The theory that he oppressed his subjects and was overthrown by his uncle Kṛṣṇa I is, as will be shown in the next section, no longer tenable. Like most other founders of new dynasties he seems to have been a wise and able ruler. In religion he shared orthodox Hindu beliefs. When he was at the sacred tīrtha Ujjain, he performed there the Hiraṇyagarbhamahādāna; he must have obviously believed that the ritual would endow him with a divine body. On the rathasaptamī day of 754 A.D. he weighed himself against gold and distributed the money among the Brahmanas. He showed his devotion to his mother by bestowing, at her request, lands in several villages on worthy Brahmanas.³⁴ The precise date of his death is not known but since his successor was on the throne in 758 A.D., it is clear that he must have died not long after 754 A.D., when he could hardly have been much above 30. When we remember how young he died, his achievements will have to be pronounced as unique.