The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.189

Language: English

c8.s11.189.1

¹ For the proof of this, see my remarks in *Epigraphia Indica*, Vol. III: pp. 159 to 176; the matter is too long to be repeated here.—Spurious records are by no means uncommon, and have been met with in all parts of India. But Mysore, with some neighbouring localities, has been especially productive of them, including some of the most bare-faced specimens, purporting to be even nearly five thousand years old. Out of twenty-six records of this nature enumerated by me on page 172 f., note 6, in my remarks referred to above, thirteen (including the nine Western Gaṅga grants which purport to belong to the earlier period of the family) are from Mysore. And Mr. Rice's *Inscriptions in Mysore*; Part I., supplies the following additional instances:—(1) No. Nj. 199, an inscription on stone at Gaṭṭavāḍi; this does not actually mention the Gaṅgas; but it purports to be dated in the reign of a certain Eṛeha-Vemmaḍi, in the *Aṅgiras saṁvatsara*, coupled with *Śaka-Saṁvat* 111 by mistake for 114 expired or 115 current, = A.D. 192-93: a lithograph is given, and the characters shew that the record belongs to the ninth or tenth century A. D. (2) No. Nj. 122, a copper-plate grant at Tagaḍūr; this purports to be dated in the time of the Western Gaṅga king Harivarman, in the *Vibhava saṁvatsara*, coupled with *Ś.-S.* 188 expired by mistake for 170 expired, = A.D. 248-249 (or for any other year with which *Vibhava* may have coincided): a lithograph is given;

c8.s11.189.2

and the characters, which are of much the same general style with those of the spurious Tanjore grant (*Ind. Ant.* Vol. VIII. p. 212) which purports to give a date in A. D. 248 for the same person, suggest the tenth century A. D. as the earliest possible period for the concoction of the record. (3) No. Md. 113, a copper-plate grant at Haḷḷegere (noticed by me in *Epigraphia Indica*, Vol. III. p. 174, note 4); this purports to be dated in the time of the Western Gaṅga king Śivamāra I., in the thirty-fourth year of his reign, *Ś.-S.* 635 expired, = A.D. 713-714: a lithograph is given; and, like some of the others, this record betrays itself by using the later and cursive form of the *kh* (in connection with the name of Viśvakarman, the alleged writer of this record, Mr. Rice again misrepresents what was said by Sir Walter Elliot; see *Epigraphia Indica*, Vol. III. p. 164, note 1). To these we have to add, also from Mysore, (4) a Suraḍhēnupura copper-plate grant (*Inscriptions in the Mysore District*, Part I., Introd. p. 3), which purports to be dated in the third year of the reign of Śivamāra II., in the *Sarvajit saṁvatsara*, *Ś.-S.* 729, expired, = A.D. 807-808: a lithograph of this grant is not available yet; but there is every reason to believe that the record will betray its spurious nature in the way in which the others do;

c8.s11.189.3

and it may be noted that, unless it introduces any fresh names, the result of it, taken in connection with the Nāgamangala grant, would be that Śrīpurusha-Muttarasa, reigned for seventy-eight years.—Another record in the same book, No. Nj. 110, an inscription on stone at Kūḍḷapura, purports to connect a date in the *Subhakṛit saṁvatsara*, *Ś.-S.* 25 expired, = A. D. 103-104, with Koṅgaṇivarman, the alleged founder of the Western Gaṅga dynasty, who is apparently mentioned in the record as *prathama-Gaṅga*, "the first Gaṅga;" but the passage occurs as part of a record of A. D. 1148, and is only based on some spurious grant or archive; it does not purport to be a synchronous record of the king to whom it refers. As regards this date, Mr. Rice, who has hitherto so implicitly accepted the spurious Gaṅga records, says (*loc. cit.* Introd. p. 1)—"Without corroboration from other sources, however, this can hardly be accepted as deciding the matter, especially as the only other document which professes to give his date, namely, the Tamil chronicle called *Koṅguḍēśa-Rājākkaḷ*, places his reign in *Śaka* 111 (A.D. 189)." With regard to the Gaṭṭavāḍi inscription, No. 1 above, Mr. Rice (*loc. cit.* pp. 1, 2) "would be disposed to alter the 111, though it is given in words as well as in figures, to 711: "the number of the hundreds may have been left out in the words, and a thil to the 1 "would make 7 in the figures." And in connection with the Tagaḍūr grant, No. 2 above, he says (*loc.

c8.s11.189.4

cit.* p. 2)—"The Gaṅga grant, therefore, now under consideration, belongs "to a certain class, based it may be on a real substratum of facts, but impossible to "accept on their own statements, though the motives for falsification are not apparent." It is satisfactory to find that Mr. Rice has begun to look at the Western Gaṅga records from a critical point of view, and has recognised that such liberties may be taken with them, as even to alter a given date by six centuries.