The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c13.s5.43

v2.c13.s5.43

Once more we must turn to Rāṣṭrakūṭa history for the elucidation of these statements. The name of the Lāṭa enemy of Narasimha is not given. But Lāṭa had been brought under his sway by Rāṣṭrakūṭa Kṛṣṇa II. Evidently there was need for its reconquest by Narasimha II at the very beginning of that expedition to the north which he undertook in the service of his suzerain Indra III. This fact may be explained in one of two ways: either Lāṭa had slipped out of Rāṣṭrakūṭa control and become an independent State like Mālava (the seven Mālavas of the inscription and of Pampa); or possibly the entire region, Mālava and Lāṭa included, had passed under the suzerainty of the Pratīhāras, and the campaign against Mahīpala must then be taken to have begun with the conquest of Lāṭa. However this may be, there is no doubt that the campaign of Indra III and Narasimha II resulted in Lāṭa and Mālava being brought for a time definitely under Rāṣṭrakūṭa control (the Paramāras being installed as vassals in Mālava), and in Mahīpala's losing his kingdom and being temporarily driven into exile. The Cambay plates of Govinda IV state that Indra's elephants made the precincts (prāṅgaṇa) of Kālapriya uneven with the strokes of their tusks, that his horses crossed the Jumna ‘as deep as the ocean’, and that after his expedition, the city Mahodaya (great prosperity) became Kuśasthali (a meadow).² Pampa also mentions the waters of the Ganges and Kālapriya in the same verse. Kālapriya has generally been taken to be the same as Mahākāla of Ujjain; but this equation is not justified since Mahākāla and Kālapriya are really two very different names; and it has been rightly suggested that Kālapriya should be taken to be modern Kalpi where many other armies are known to have crossed the Jumna,³ and where we find a temple of Kālapriya existing today.⁴ Kalpi is on the direct route from the south to Kanauj, the Pratīhāra capital on the Ganges, whose destruction was the culmination of Indra's campaign, as is seen from the clever play upon the alternative names of the city (Mahodaya and Kuśasthali) in the Cambay plates; moreover, there would be no point in a great poet like Pampa making another reference to Ujjain after he had disposed of the conquest of Mālava in an earlier verse. Narasimha is seen thus to have played a leading part in securing the resounding success that attended Indra's victorious northern campaign about A.D. 916; this he did, according to the Vēmulavāḍa inscription, by gaining a decisive victory with his own troops, unaided by those of Indra, at Kalpi, where Mahīpala had taken his stand to oppose the advance of the southern army against his capital. Narasimha’s queen was Jākavve, probably a sister of Indra III and mother of Arikesarī II,¹ the patron of Pampa.