The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.265

c8.s11.265

Yasôvardhana, who was the son of Yasôrata, who, again, was the son of Vyâghrarâta, of whom we have a record at Bijayagaḍh in the Bharatpur State,¹ with a date which, referred to the Mâlava era, falls in A. D. 372, was the leader of some northern branch of the tribe; he must have been a feudatory of Samudragupta. In the fifth century, we have the names of Viśvavarman, the son or younger brother of Naravarman; with the date of A. D. 423,² and of Bandhuvarman, son of Viśvavarman, who in A. D. 436, as a vassal of Kumâragupta I., was governing at Daśapura, which is the modern Mandasôr in western Mâlwa.³ After the downfall of the Early Guptas, Mâlwa must have fallen, somewhere between A. D. 484 and 510, into the hands of the foreign invader Tôramâṇa. His son Mihirakula held it, after him, till somewhere about A. D. 530. And in A. D. 532-33 it was a part of the dominions of a king of Northern India named Vishṇuvardhana-Yasôdharman, who overthrew Mihirakula, and of whom we have records at Mandasôr:⁴ this king is described as ruling right across Northern India, to the shores of the western ocean; and he is perhaps the paramount sovereign by whom,⁵ just before A. D. 526, the Mahârâja Droṇasiṃha of Valabhî, was anointed to the rule of the then feudatory province of Kâṭhiâwâḍ. In A. D. 738-39, the northern parts of Mâlwa were in the possession of a prince named Dhavala, claiming to be of the Maurya race.⁶ But the intermediate history of the country remains to be worked out. Though Pulikêśin II. claims to have subdued the Mâlavas, there are no indications that their territory ever became a part of his dominions; and the allusion must be to some successful resistance of an attempted invasion of his kingdom by them.