History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s3.41

c15.s3.41

78. In the Eastern Punjab there was the feudatory ‘D y - nasty of S i n g h a p u r a’ (Simhapura) who were the ‘k i n g s’ of J ā l a n - d h a r a’. This Simhapura was an ancient fortified city which is known to the Mahā-Bhārata.¹ An inscription² of their family recorded at Lakkhāmaṇḍal, on the Upper Jumna, in the district of Dehra Dun, proves that their jurisdiction in the Gupta times extended up to the Siwaliks. The family, as feudatory rulers of the ‘S i n g h a p u r a rājya’, seems to have been founded about 250 A.D., as 12 generations of theirs are given in the inscription.³ Their date shows that they must have come into existence in the latter part of the Bhāraśiva time or in the beginning of that of the Vākāṭakas. They were Y ā d a v a s, and the inscription says that they had been in that part of the country since the beginning of the Yuga (Kali Yuga). This receives corroboration from the history of the migration of the Y ā d a v a s from M a t h u r ā as recorded in the Sabhā Parvan, Chapter XIV, verse 25 ff. The Ś ā l v a s and K u n i n d a s had migrated along with and at the same time as the Yādavas from Mathurā [Śūrasena] and its neighbourhood, and settled in the Punjab. The Ṭ a k k a s, who later migrated into Malwa from the Śālva country, the S i m h a p u r a Y ā d a v a s and the M a t h u r ā - N ā g a s thus seem to have all belonged to the great Y ā d a v a stock, which explains their special patriotism for Mathurā. The Simhapura family was thus a family allied to the Bhāraśivas. It was kept on by the Vākāṭakas. The ‘S i m h a p u r a - r ā j y a’ seems to have been a bulwark erected by the Nāga emperors to throw back the Kushans. The early Simhapura kings are noted in the inscription for their Hindu orthodoxy (Ārya-vratatā) and bravery. They were, like the Bhāraśivas, Śaivaites. Their kingdom lasted, at least, down to the time of Yuan Chwang (631 A.D.) who has noticed it. The Guptas evidently allowed them to continue, probably in view of the importance of their family and the part which they must have played in pushing back the Kushans from northern Āryāvarta during the Bhāraśiva time. They are not registered in the Purāṇas as they formed part of the Āryāvarta dominions of the Vākāṭakas which they inherited from the Bhāraśivas. The kings of Simhapura, i.e., of Jālandhara, never struck coins of their own. The M a d r a s were to the west of the kingdom of Simhapura.