The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.127

c8.s11.127

The Katachchuris are mentioned in connection with Maṅgalēśa, who was the younger brother of Kīrtivarman I., and reigned from A.D. 597-98 to 608; he is described as “obtaining as his wife, in a bridal pavilion that was the battle-field, the lovely woman who was the goddess of the fortunes of the Katachchuris,”—i. e. as conquering them.¹ Whether this form of the name is due only to a mistake of the writer or engraver of the record, in forming ṭa instead of ḷa in the second syllable, or whether it is an authentic variant, the Katachchuris are, undoubtedly, a branch of the same stock with the Kalachuris of the Dāhala or Chēdi country in Central India, whose power, as shewn by the epoch of their own special era, dated back to A. D. 249.² A closer approach to the customary form of the name is to be found in the Kauthēm grant of A. D. 1009, in which Maṅgalēśa is described as “the lord, by force, of the royal fortunes of the Kâlachuris.”³ A Sanskritised form of the name, Kalatsûri, occurs in Maṅgalēśa’s pillar inscription at Mahâkûṭa.⁴ As, in their later records, the Kalachuris of Central India represent themselves as descended from Sahasra-Arjuna or Sahasrabâhu-Arjuna,⁵ there is possibly an early reference to them, as the Ârjunâyanas, in the list of frontier kings who, according to the Allahâbâd pillar inscription, did obeisance to Samudragupta.⁶ Traces of them have been obtained through the copper-plate grants, from the neighbourhood of Jabalpur in the Central Provinces, of the feudatory Mahârâjas Jayanâtha and Sarvanâtha of Uchchakalpa, which refer themselves to an unnamed era that must be the Kalachuri or Chēdi era, and the dates of which range from A. D. 423 to 462.⁷ And further