History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s3.21

c16.s3.21

his son Simhavarman II of Kāñchī. From Eraṇḍapalli to Kāñchī is a big jump. This can be consistent only on the hypothesis that they were together at one and the same spot. Then comes the ruler of Āvamukta or Avamukta. The Ava country or people had their capital Pithuṇḍa near the Godavari. Ava and Pithuṇḍa are noted in the Hathigumpha inscription.¹ After him comes the ruler of Veṅgī, a tract which Samudra Gupta had already passed on his way from Mahākāntāra to Kurāla. It was not possible for Samudra Gupta to go to Kāñchī, if he went there, without meeting the ruler of Veṅgī on the way: this is another proof that all these fighters were at one place. Palakka, as already pointed out, is the same place wherefrom several grants in the district of Guntur and near about Bezwada were made by the early Pallavas. In the grants the name appears as Palakkada. It was situated in the Andhradeśa nearabout the Kṛṣṇā. Devarāṣṭra, which figures next in the person of its ruler, fixes again the location of all these ‘rājans’ at one and the same place. It was a district (vishaya) in Elmañchi-Kaliṅgadeśa (modern Yellamanchilli) according to a plate of Chālukya Bhīma I² whose another plate was discovered at Bezwada. Kusthala-pura must have been similarly some district-place in the same region, though we have not yet recovered its name in any other record. Probably except the rulers of Kosala and Mahākāntāra, all these military chiefs—from the rank of kings, e.g. Svāmidatta and Viṣṇugopa, to that of district magistrates [against whom no conqueror would take the trouble of marching]—must have been together and must have fought at one and the same battlefield. The order in which they are mentioned probably represents the order of the battle-array or the order of their surrender. Their importance is as fighters and military leaders, not as rulers. They seem to have been grouped under two chief leaders: [the numbers before the names denote their order in the Allahabad inscription. See footnote 4 to § 135, pp. 136-137.]