The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v2.c31.126

v2.c31.126

The dates in these four inscriptions range from *c.* 1029 to 1062 A.D.¹ According to Merutuṅga, Bhīma I ascended the throne of Aṇahilapāṭaka in V. S. 1077² or 1078.³ As both the Hindu and Muslim chronicles allot to him a reign of 42 years⁴ we may with some certainty assign him to the period *c.* 1022-64 A.D. The *Prabandha-cintāmaṇi* supplies us with some details of the relationship between him and his contemporaries, the Paramāra Bhoja (*c.* 1010-1055 A.D.) and the Kalacuri (Lakṣmī)-Karṇa (*c.* 1041-70 A.D.). We are told that at first ‘a league of friendship subsisted’ between Bhīma and Bhoja. But the peace was broken through the hostile activities of Bhoja. The first invasion of Gujarat by Bhoja was diverted to the south against Tailapa by the intrigues of Ḍāmara, Bhīma’s minister of peace and war.⁵ But the second time, when Bhīma had marched to conquer the ‘country of Sindh,’ Kulacandra,⁶ Bhoja's commander-in-chief, swooped down upon his capital Aṇahilapāṭaka ‘sacked the august city, and having caused cowries to be sown at the gate of the clock-tower of the palace, extorted a record of victory’ (*Jaya-patra*). In retaliation Bhīma sent soldiers into the country of his enemy and once very nearly caught him when the latter was worshipping his family goddess in a temple in a suburb of the city of Dhārā. Bhīma however could not achieve any material success against Bhoja, till the latter incurred the hostility of the Ḍāhala king Karṇa. The latter attacked Bhoja, in company with 136 princes, ‘and at the same time he invited Bhīma to attack the country of Mālava in the rear, promising him the half of Bhoja’s kingdom. Then king Bhoja, being attacked by those two kings, lost his pride, as a snake, overcome with a charm, loses its poison. And then a sudden corporeal malady took hold of Bhoja,’ of which he died. After this Karṇa ‘broke down the fort and took all the wealth of Bhoja.’ But owing to the intrigues of Dāmara, Karṇa while sleeping after the sack of Dhārā, was taken prisoner by the former and had to give Bhīma ‘a golden shrine, and the lord Śiva associated with Gaṇeśa.’¹