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History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c16.s1.t2: Their original territories

History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c16.s1.t2

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English

Their original territories

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There is a remarkable passage (stanza 51) in the colophon to the Jain *Harivaṃśa*, which gives us valuable information regarding the place where the Pratihāras of Kanauj were settled prior to their northern conquest. It runs as follows :

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Sākesv-abdaśateṣu saptasu disāṃ pañcottareṣū-
ttarāṃ,
Pāti-Indrāyudha-nāmni Kṛṣṇanṛpaje Śrīvallabhe
dakṣiṇāṃ.
Pūrvāṃ Śrīmad-Avanti-bhūbhṛiti nṛipe
Vatsā-dirāje-parāṃ,
Sauryāṇām-adhimanḍale Jayayute vīre varāhe-vatī¹.

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¹ *Bom. Gaz.*, 1896, Vol. I, pt. II, p. 197, fn. 2; *Ind. Ant.*, XV, pp. 141-42.

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Commenting on this stanza Dr. Fleet observed that the "work was finished in Śaka-*saṃvat* 705 (expired) = A. D. 783-84, when there were reigning—in various directions determined with reference to a town named Vardhamāna-pura, which is to be identified with the modern Wadhwan in the Jhalavad divison of Kāṭhiāwāḍ—in the north, Indrāyudha; in the south, Śrīvallabha; in the east Vatsarāja, king of Avanti (Ujjain); and in the west Varāha or Jayavarāha, in the territory of the Sauryas². This interpretation was later on called in question by Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar,³ but, as in view of the new light thrown by the Sanjan plates, the learned professor himself has "no doubt now as to the correctness of Dr.

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² *Fleet*, *Ep. Ind.*, VI, pp. 195-96; see also Dr. Hoernle, *J. R. A. S.*, 1904, p. 644; Dr. R. C. Majumdar, *Jour. Dept. Lett.*, (Calcutta University), Vol. X, pp. 23-25.

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³ *J. B. B. R. A. S.*, XXI, p. 421, fn. 4; this rendering was also endorsed by Smith in *J. R. A. S.*, 1909, p. 253; Sten Konow, *Ep. Ind.*, XII, p. 200; R. D. Banerji, *Mem. As. Soc. Beng.*, Vol. V, pt. III, p. 50.

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Fleet’s translation,”¹ we omit to discuss his rendering here.² Now the chief point to be noticed in Dr. Fleet’s translation is that it gives the king’s personal name in each case, and equates Vatsarāja with the ruler of Avanti (Ujjain). This Vatsarāja has been accepted on all hands to be identical with the monarch of the same name mentioned in the Kanauj Pratīhāra inscriptions as predecessor of Nāgabhaṭa II and grand-nephew of Nāgabhaṭa I, the founder of the line. We may, therefore, safely draw the inference that the predecessors of the Pratīhāra conqueror of Kanauj had their seat of power at Ujjain and not Śrīmāla or Bhinmal in Southern Rajputana, as was at one time asserted by Smith and other scholars.³ Support for this view may further be found in a verse occurring in the Sanjan plates of Amoghavarṣa I, dated in the Saka year 793 or 871 A. D.⁴ It says :

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, XVIII, p. 239.

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² Dr. R. C. Majumdar has examined this point at some length; see *Jour. Dep. Lett.*, Vol. X, pp. 23-26.

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³ *J. R. A. S.*, 1909, p. 57; *Early Hist. of India*, 4th ed., p. 393; Sten Konow, *Ep. Ind.*, XII, p. 201.

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, XVIII, pp. 235-57.

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“Hiraṇyagarbhaṁ rājanyaiḥ Ujjayinyāṁ yadā-
sitam,
Pratīhāriḥ kṛtaṁ yena Gurjjareś-ādi rājakaṁ,”

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i.e., “By whom kings such as the Gurjara lord and others were made door-keepers when in Ujjayini the (great gift called) Hiraṇyagarbha was completed by the Kṣatriyas.”⁵ We thus learn from this passage that Dantidurga Rāṣṭrakūṭa reduced to subordinate rank a Gurjara ruler, and made him publicly attend on him as a *pratihāra* or door-keeper at a grand ceremony at Ujjain. Now, if the Gurjara was not king of Ujjain, this act would not have much point, for it was evidently meant to create an impression. Besides, the special mention of the Gurjara among the princes compelled to do homage and the play on the word *pratihāra*, suggests that he was the chief then ruling over the territories of Ujjain.

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⁵ Ibid., pp. 243, 252, verse 9. The Ellora Daśāvatāra cave temple inscription also informs us that Mahārāja Sarva, apparently another name of Dantidurga, conquered Mālava and instituted a Mahādāna ceremony, in which he freely distributed large sums of money and other precious objects among supplicants (*Arch. Surv. Ind. W. Circle, V*, p. 88).

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*Their power prior to the transfer of the capital*

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The inscriptions give us some glimpses of the doings of the Pratihāras in their homelands, which brought them into prominence and ultimately enabled Nāgabhata II to subjugate the kingdom of Kanauj. The family began well under Nāgabhata, who is credited in the Gwalior inscription with "having crushed the large armies of the powerful Mleccha king, the destroyer of virtue."¹ Evidently we have here a reference to his successful stand against the vanguards of Islam that were at this time sweeping down the western borders of India. This conclusion is also in accordance with the information supplied by Al Bilādūri, who after mentioning the different regions overrun by the Arabs in India says : "They made incursions against Uzain and they attacked Baharīmad and burnt its suburbs. Junaid conquered Al Bailaman and Jurz."² It is thus clear that the Arabs could not make any headway against Ujjain, for whereas Junaid, who was governor of Sind under Khalif Hishām (724-743 A. D.) subdued other places, he is represented to have simply carried on raids in the direction of Ujjain. During the time of his weak and incompetent successor, Tamim, the Arabs even “retired from several parts of India and left some of their positions,”¹ and this decline in their power may have in no small measure been due to the vigorous drive of Indian rulers like that of Ujjain. Perhaps it was in the course of these fights that Nāgabhaṭa carried his arms as far as Bhrigukaccha or Broach, where the Cāhamāna feudatory Bhartrivaddha II is recorded in V. E. 813 = 756 A. D. to have made a grant of the village Arjunadevigrāma situate in the Akrūreśvara viṣaya (Anklesvar Taluka) to the Brahman Bhaṭṭabhūṭa “in the reign of increasing victory of the illustrious Nāgāvaloka,”² who is in all likelihood no other than the founder of the Pratīhāra line.³

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¹ Ep. Ind., XVIII, pp. 107, 110-111. Cf. "Yen āsau sukṛita pramāthi va (ba) lavān Mlecchādhip—ākṣauhiṇīḥ."

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² Elliot, History of India, Vol. I, p. 126.

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¹ *Ibid.*

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² Hansot grant, *Ep. Ind.*, XII, pp. 203, 204.

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³ Sten Konow, *Ibid.*, p. 200; Dr. Bhandarkar, *Ind. Ant.*, 1911, p. 240.

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The second king, Kakustha, was the son of an unnamed brother of Nāgabhaṭa; he was also called Kakkuka on account of his habit of saying welcome things in an inverted manner, but beyond this curious fact we know nothing about him.

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The third king, Devaśakti or Devarāja, younger brother of Kakkuka, seems to have maintained the dignity of the house in tact, although the reference in the Gwalior inscription to the curbing of the movements (gati) of a “multitude of kings” (bhūbhrit) and their powerful allies” (pakṣāḥ) indicates that sometime during his reign the Pratīhāra authority was threatened by external danger. His son and successor Vatsarāja, born of Bhūyikādevī and known to have been ruling in the year 783-84 A. D., was certainly more than a mere name. The Gwalior inscription asserts that “with strong bows as his companion he forcibly wrested (hathād-agrahīt) the empire (sāmrājyam), in battle from the famous Bhaṇḍi clan, hard to be overcome by reason of the rampart made of infuriated elephants.”¹ It is difficult to identify this Bhaṇḍi clan, as history does not record any other Bhaṇḍi except the prince mentioned in the Harṣacarita, but we do not know what happened to him and where he established his authority. A conjecture may, however, be hazarded that the name stands for the Bhaṭṭi clan, whose political importance may best be inferred from the fact mentioned in the Jodhpur inscription that Padminī, the mother of Pratīhāra Bāuka, belonged to it.² We may, therefore, take the passage as an allusion to Vatsarāja’s attainment of the supreme status in Gurjaratrā or Central Rajputana, which is to some extent confirmed by the Osia and Daulatpura inscriptions. The former is engraved in the porch of a Jain temple and speaks of it as existing in the time of Vatsarāja,³ and according to the latter charter he granted the village of Sivā in the Deṇḍavānaka viṣaya (modern Didwāna) of the Gurjaratrā bhūmi to the Bhaṭṭavāsudeva.⁴

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¹ Ep. Ind., XVIII, pp. 108, 111, verse 7.

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² Ibid., pp. 96, 98, verse 26.

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³ J. R. A. S., 1907, p. 1010.

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⁴ Ep. Ind., V, pp. 211, 213.

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But the most noteworthy tribute to his achievements is paid by the inscriptions of his victorious rivals, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas themselves. We are, for example, told in the Wani-Dindori⁵ and Radhanpur grants⁶ that Vatsarāja had become “intoxicated with the goddess of the sovereignty (of the country of) Gauḍa that he had acquired with ease,” and that his fame “had reached to the extremities of the regions.” Again, the Baroda plates of 812 A. D. inform us that the lord of Gurjaras became “evilly inflamed by conquering the lord of Gauḍa and the lord of Vanga.”¹ It is, however, not necessary to suppose that Vatsarāja’s armies overran Bengal, for he may have come into conflict with the Gauḍa monarch, identified with Dharmapāla, far away during the latter’s foreign expeditions. Perhaps after this trial of strength their relations became more happy. This would be evident if we remember that the Khalimpur plates depose that the ruler of Avanti approved of the installation of Cakrāyudha at Kanauj under the ægis of Dharmapāla. Presumably Vatsarāja made this diplomatic gesture on account of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa danger then looming large on the political horizon. But nothing availed him, and the storm soon burst in all its destructive fury. For, the Wani and Radhanpur grants attest that Dhruva caused Vatsarāja “to enter upon the path of misfortune in the centre of (the deserts of) Maru,” which expression probably means that the Rāṣṭrakūṭa monarch met his rival in a successful encounter and compelled him to take shelter in the inhospitable tracts of Rajputana, where, as shown above, the Pratīhāras of Ujjain had already established their supremacy.

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⁵ Ind. Ant., XI, p. 161.

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⁶ Ep. Ind., VI, pp. 243, 248, verse 8.

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¹ Ibid., XII, p. 164. The overlordship of Gauḍa and Vanga explains the expression “Gauḍa’s two umbrellas of state,” which, according to the Radhanpur grant, Dhruva took away from Vatsarāja.

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