Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s5.3

c8.s5.3

Although Ganga inscriptions professing to be of the third century have been found, the earliest which contain a detailed account of the origin of the family are stone inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the Nagar and Shimoga tāluqs (the chief being Nr 35, Sh 10, 4, 64). If any such of older date existed, which is not improbable, they have been lost or destroyed. According to the above records—which were inscribed in the time of the great Chalukya king Vikramāditya or Vikramāṅka, the son of a Ganga princess—the Gangas were of the Ikshvāku and therefore Solar race. They were descended from Dhananjaya, whose son was Hariśchandra, of whom the first two say Daḍiga and Mādhava were the sons. The other two make them the sons of Padmanābha descended from Hariśchandra, and interpose a number of steps. Thus Hariśchandra's son was Bharata, whose wife was Vijayamahādēvi. At the time of conception she bathed in the Gaṅgā or Ganges to remove her languor, and the son born in consequence was named Gaṅgādatta, whence his descendants were called the Gangas.¹ After a time there was Vishnuguptā, who, by performing a certain sacrifice, pleased the god Indra and received from him an elephant. Vishnugupta had two sons, Bhagadatta and Śrīdatta, between whom he divided his dominions. To Bhagadatta was given Kalinga, and he ruled as Kalinga Ganga. Śrīdatta had the ancestral kingdom, together with the elephant, which thus became the Ganga crest. Later on there was Priyabandhu, to whom the god Indra gave five tokens, with a warning that they would disappear if the kings adopted any other faith. At length arose Padmanābha, who by his penance obtained two sons. When, some time after, Mahīpāla, the ruler of Ujjayini, suddenly attacked him, demanding the five tokens, Padmanābha refused to surrender them and prepared for war. But first sent them away, along with his two sons, to the South, accompanied by their sister and attendant Brāhmans. At the time of their departure he gave his sons the names Daḍiga and Mādhava, and the history continues only in connection with them. Their line was the Ganga line—*tad anvayō Gaṅgānvayaḥ* (Nr 35).