The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11.s8.17

v1.c11.s8.17

The earliest reliable mention that we have of Bijjaḷa’, said Fleet,² ‘is in an inscription at Harihar in Mysore: the photograph does not show the date; but the record itself is of the time of the Western Chāḷukya king Jagadekamalla II, and therefore belongs to the period A.D. 1138-9 to 1149; and it may be placed approximately in A.D. 1145. This record does not expressly state that Bijjaḷa—to whom no titles of any kind, subordinate or otherwise, are allotted in it—was a feudatory of Jagadekamalla II; it simply says that, in the time of that king, there was Bijjaḷa, whose servant Vijaya-Pāṇḍya was ruling the Nolambavāḍi thirty-two thousand.’ Inscriptions of Jagadekamalla’s reign dated in A.D. 1147 mention two generals Barmmadaṇḍādhipa and Keśirāja-daṇḍanātha, whom we find again under Bijjaḷa in charge of important offices.³ The fact that in this early inscription Bijjaḷa is not clearly described as a feudatory of the Chāḷukya ruler deserves to be noticed as evidence suggesting at least that even at this early date he was contemplating plans for his eventual usurpation. But the date is not beyond doubt, and there is the possibility that Jagadekamalla, like Jayasiṁha and Jagadekamalla in another record of 1149 noted above, is a mere symbol for the Chāḷukyas.