The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v2.c30.s4.309

v2.c30.s4.309

The misfortunes of the Caulukyas seems to have also reacted very favourably on the fortunes of the main branch of the Paramāras of Malwa. As I have indicated above, when the conquering legions of the Caulukyas burst through the Panch Mahals and occupied the whole of western, southern, and eastern Malwa as far as Udayapura, Yaśovarman may have been forced down the Kali Sindhu and the Parbati. He may have maintained a precarious existence somewhere round the modern states of Kotah, Tonk and Jhalawar. His two immediate successors, Jayavarman and Ajayavarman, do not seem to have had any great degree of success in retrieving the lost dominions of their ancestors. But Ajayavarman's son and successor, Vindhyavarman, appears to have come out from his northern retreat and recovered Dhārā, which had been lost to his family since the days of Yaśovarman. This is proved by the statement found in the grants of Arjunavarman and Devapāla, which inform us that Vindhyavarman's long arm was eager to extirpate the Gūrjaras (*Gūrjara-ccheda*) and that "the sword of this (king) skilled in war, with Dhārā rescued by it, assumed three edges (*i.e.*, *tridhārā* = Ganges), to protect as it were the three worlds."'² The recovery of Dhārā must have been completed about V.S. 1249 (*c.* 1192 A.D.), for Jain tradition records that soon after that year Āśādhara's father Salakhaṇa (Sallakṣaṇa) came to Dhārā, to the court of Vindhyavarman, *alias* Vijayavarman.³ According to the same tradition *Mahākavi* Bilhaṇa served as the *Sāndhi-vigrahika-mantri* of Vindhyavarman.¹ An unpublished inscription of this minister, dated in the reign of his master, is reported to have been found at Maṇḍapa-durga (mod. Mandu).²