History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c20.s2.t1.1

c20.s2.t1.1

The Gahaḍavāla kings, like the Pratihāras whose religion has already been stated, did not confine their devotions to one member only of the great Hindu pantheon. Thus, while they officially describe themselves as "*Paramamāheśvara*," i.e., "devout worshippers of the god Śiva," their records also invoke in the beginning the blessings of Śrī (Lakṣmī), the goddess of prosperity, and Dāmodara (Gaṇeśa), and on the seals attached to the copper-plates there are representations of the flying Garuḍa and conch-shell (Pāñcajanya conch?), which may indicate their predilections towards Vaiṣṇavism. Indeed, one of the Kamauli inscriptions even asserts that Jayacandra was initiated, with the consent of his father, as a devotee of the god Kṛṣṇa on the 10th tithi of the bright half of the month of Āṣāḍha of the Vikrama year 1224, corresponding to Sunday, the 16th of June, 1168 A. D.—the day of his installation to the dignity of Yuvarāja.¹ But so marked was the royal eclecticism that according to a Bodhgayā inscription in later life Jayacandra, out of reverence for a Buddhist monk named Śrīmitra, himself became his disciple "with a pleasing heart and an indescribable hankering."² Moreover, we are uniformly told in their documents that the Gāhaḍavāla monarchs made grants "after having worshipped the sun (sūrya), after having praised him (Śiva), after having performed adoration to Vāsudeva, and after having sacrificed to the fire an oblation of abundant milk, rice and sugar, and after having offered oblations to the manes."