The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.348

c8.s11.348

¹ The exact expression in the original is *dharma-Mahārājādhirāja*, 'the pious or righteous *Mahārājādhirāja*' (compare page 303 above, note 3).—*Mahārājādhirāja* is a paramount title, which superseded the earlier *Mahārāja* (see page 288 above, note 5). I have hitherto treated it as meaning 'supreme-king of great kings' (*mahārāja* + *adhirāja*): but it may possibly more correctly mean 'great supreme king of kings' (*mahā* + *rājādhirāja*): for, *rājādhirāja* itself was a paramount title; and there are many cases in which higher grades are designated by the use of the word *mahā* (= *mahat*); thus, *sēnāpati* and *mahāsēnāpati*, *sāmanta* and *mahāsāmanta*, *sāndhivigrahika* and *mahāsāndhivigrahika*.—In Northern India, the primitive title of *Mahārāja* had been superseded by that of *Mahārājādhirāja*, at any rate by the time of Samudragupta (about A.D. 450). In Southern India, on the contrary, *Mahārāja* was retained as a paramount title until the generation after Pulikēśin II.: it was used by him; and it was his son Vikramāditya I. who first introduced the higher title.—I am not to be understood as meaning that the use of the higher title stamps the present Pallava grant as belonging to a period later than that of Pulikēśin II. It is undoubtedly earlier. And it would seem that, through their contact with Samudragupta, the Pallavas of Kāñchī came to learn the existence of the title, and brought it into occasional use, long before the time when it penetrated to the western parts of Southern India.