Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c8.54

c8.54

Krishna or Akālavarsha had a son named Jagattunga who does not appear to have come to the throne. Other plates show that he went to Chedi the modern Bundelkhand and remained there during his father's lifetime. By Lakshmī the daughter of the king of Chedi, Jagattunga had a son named Indra also called Nityavarsha, Raṭṭakandarpa. In both of Indra's Navsāri copperplates (A.D. 914) Indra is mentioned as Pādānudhyāta, falling at the feet of, that is successor of, not his father but his grandfather Akālavarsha. One historical attribute of Indra in both the plates is that "he oppressed in a moment the Mehe," apparently referring to some contemporary Mehe king of North Kāthiāwād. Both the Navsāri plates of Saka 836 (A.D. 914) note that the grants were made under peculiar conditions. The plates say that the donor Indra Nityavarsha, with his capital at Mānyakheṭa, had come to a place named Kurundaka for the paṭṭabandha or investiture festival. It is curious that though Mānyakheṭa is mentioned as the capital the king is described as having come to Kurundaka for the investiture. Kurundaka was apparently not a large town as the plates mention that it was given in grant. At his investiture Indra made great gifts. He weighed himself against gold or silver, and before leaving the scales he gave away Kurundaka and other places, twenty and a half lākhs of dramma coins, and 400 villages previously granted but taken back by intervening kings. These details have no air of exaggeration. At the same time gifts of coins by kings are not improbable by so mighty a king as Indra and as to the villages the bulk of them had already been alienated. The fact of lavish grants is supported by the finding of these two plates of the same date recording grants of two different villages made on the same occasion, the language being the same, and also by a verse in the late Rāshṭrakūṭa Karḍā plate (S. 894, A.D. 972) where Indra is described as making numerous grants on copperplates and building many temples of Siva.¹ The date of Indra's grants (S. 836, A.D. 914) is the date of his investiture and accession. This is probably the latest known date of his grandfather Krishna is Saka 833 (A.D. 911) and we know that Indra's father Jagattunga did not reign.² Umrā and Tenna, the villages granted in the two Navsāri plates, are described as situated near Kammanijja the modern Kamlej in the Lāṭa province. They are probably the modern villages of Umrā near Sāyun four miles west of Kamlej, and of Tenna immediately to the west of Bardoli, which last is mentioned under the form Vāradapallikā as the eastern boundary village. Dhruva II's Begumra plate (S. 789, A.D. 867) mentions Tenna as granted calling himself Raṭṭakandarpa, the Love of the Raṭṭas. The result is thus in agreement with the view accepted in the text that Rāshṭrakūṭa means leaders of the Raṭṭa tribe, the form Rāshṭra being chosen because the leaders held the position of Rāshṭrakūṭas or District Headmen. According to Dr. Bhandarkar (Deccan History, 19) the tribal name Raṭṭa or Rāshṭra enters into the still more famous Dakhan tribal name Mahārāṭhī or Mahraṭṭa. So far as present information goes both the Raṭṭas and the Great Raṭṭas are to be traced to the Rāṭṭikas mentioned in rock-edicts of Asoka (p. c. 215) Girnar edicts among the Aparāntas or westerners along with the Peṭenikas or people of Paithan about forty miles north-east of Ahmadnagar (Bombay Gazetteer, 82). Whether the Rāṭṭikas of the edicts is like Peṭenika a purely local name and if so why a portion of the north Dakhan should be specially known as the country of Rāshṭra are points that must remain open.¹