The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c16.351.3

v1.c16.351.3

The beginning of the importance of this family is carried back to about the 8th century A.D. by the *Dudhpani rock inscription of Udayamāna* in Hazaribagh district.³ This record informs us that three brothers named Udayamāna, Śrīdhautamāna and Ajitamāna, who were merchants engaged in trade between Ayodhyā and Tāmalipti, became masters of the three villages of Bhramaraśālmali, Nabhūtiṣaṇḍaka and Chhingala, through the favour of *Magadhādhirāja* Ādisiṁha. They must have remained petty feudatory chiefs for about four centuries, at the end of which they emerge as independent rulers in the same locality. The Govindpur *stone-inscription of the poet Gaṅgādhara* dated in *Śaka* 1059 (A.D. 1137-38), was discovered by Cunningham at Govindpur in the Nawada subdivision of the Gaya district in Bihar.¹ This is really a *praśasti* of Gaṅgādhara and his family who claimed to be Maga Brahmans highly proficient in Vedic studies. They were also poets. Cakrapāṇi, one of the ancestors of Gaṅgādhara, is compared to Vālmīki, while Gaṅgādhara himself composed a poem named *Advaitaśataka*. Kielhorn has identified the six Maga Brahmans whose verses are quoted in the *Sadukti-karṇāmṛta* compiled by Śrīdharadāsa in A.D. 1205 with the six Maga Brahmans of this inscription bearing the same names. Gaṅgādhara's uncle Daśaratha first came to the court of the *Magadheśvara* Varṇamāna, and was appointed to the office of *Pratīhāra*.