The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v2.c31.460

v2.c31.460

According to the Merutuṅga, Ajayapāladeva, soon after his accession, 'began to destroy the (Jain) temples set up by his predecessors' and appointed Kapardin, a worshipper of Durgā, to be his prime minister. Among the violent acts recorded by this author of this 'low villain of a king' is the execution of the minister Kapardin and the Jain scholar Rāmacandra, 'the author of a hundred works' (and a pupil of Hemacandra). The former was 'cast into the cauldron,' while the latter was 'placed......on a heated plate of copper.' I have already referred to the armed revolt of Āmrabhata, the son of Udayana, Kumārapāla's powerful Jain minister. We are told that he refused to prostrate himself before the king, saying that in this birth he did obeisance only "to him who is without passion as a god, to the sage Hemacandra as a teacher, and to Kumārapāla as a master."² The angry king ordered him to prepare for battle. Thereupon he worshipped the image of the Jina and after accepting consecration for battle, 'swept away from his own mansion the retainers of the king like a heap of chaff, with the wind of his own soldiers.' He then 'penetrated as far as the clock-house' and passed into existence as a god, being emulously chosen by the Apsaras, who came to behold the wondrous sight."³ There is no reason to doubt these stories of the violent end of these two influential Jain devotees. But there is some ground to suspect the authenticity of Merutuṅga's story about Kapardin. For the two inscriptions of Ajayapāla give the name of his chief minister as Someśvara. Possibly however Kapardin was one of the minor ministers. But when we contrast the evident horror and anger of Merutuṅga in his description of the death of Rāmacandra with his tacit approval in the case of Kapardin we may well suspect that underneath this story there lies a desire to show poetic justice for the violent anti-Jain policy of the king’s ministry. The *Prabandha-cintāmaṇi* says that Ajayapāla, ‘the sinner against religious edifices, was stabbed to death with a knife by a door-keeper (*Pratihāra*) named Vayajaladeva, and being devoured by worms, and suffering the tortures of hell every day, he passed into the invisible world.’¹ It is not easy to identify this murderer. But I would like to point out that this was the name of a very influential Cāhamāna officer of both Kumārapāla and Ajayapāla;² and the murder may have had some connection with the king’s religious policy.