The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c8.s7.4

v1.c8.s7.4

Prabhāvatiguptā had two sons, Divākarasena and Dāmodarasena.² The former was the elder of the two and was formally declared to have ascended the Vākāṭaka throne on the death of his father. Both the princes, however, were very young; the elder was about five and the younger about three at the death of Rudrasena. It appears that Chandragupta not only made arrangements for the efficient administration of the Vākāṭaka kingdom, but also for the proper training and education of the young princes. Most probably the famous poet Kālidāsa was one of the tutors sent to Nandivardhana by Chandragupta II. This is suggested by the literary tradition according to which the Prākṛit poem *Setubandha* was composed by Pravarasena, a king of Kuntala, soon after his accession and was later improved by Kālidāsa at the instance of Vikramāditya, i.e. Chandragupta II.¹ Rāmagirisvāmin, the deity at Rāmtek, about thirteen miles from Nagpur, was the family deity of the Vākāṭakas; Prabhāvatīguptā gave her last grant, recorded in the Rithpur plates,² from the holy precincts of the temple of this god. When tutor to the young Vākāṭaka princes, Kālidāsa doubtless visited Rāmatek many times in the company of the dowager queen in order to pay his respects to Rāmagirisvāmin. And it may well have been during one of these visits that the idea occurred to him to make the hermitage at Rāmagiri the place of banishment of his Yaksha, the hero of his *Meghadūta*. The literary tradition which associates Kālidāsa with King Bhojarāja can also be satisfactorily explained if we assume that he was first a tutor and then a protégé of Pravarasena II. The Vākāṭaka kingdom included Bhojadeśa or Bhojakaṭaka, which figures as a province of the kingdom in the Chammaka copper plates. Just as Pravarasena