Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c27.13

c27.13

Fleet was not inclined to attach any importance to the mention of Kṛṣṇa III in the said epigraph as the lord of Kandhārapura. He draws our attention to the fact that it is an isolated instance and says, “I know of no place that can be identified with an ancient Kandhārapura or Kṛṣṇapura. The name may possibly have been invented from an imaginary Kṛṣṇapura derived from some passage similar to that in which the Eastern Cālukya king Guṇaka-Vijayāditya III is said to have effected the burning of the city of Kṛṣṇa II (Kṛṣṇa-pura-dahana; see Ind. Ant., Vol. XX, p. 102, note 26).” But this attitude appears to be rather hypercritical. Since the Raṭṭas of Saundatti, who were used to represent themselves as the lords of the city of Lattalūra, could have represented their ancestor as Mānyakheṭa-pura-var-ādhīśvara if they wanted to avoid Lattalūra-pura-var-ādhīśvara, it is difficult to understand why they should have preferred to bring in the name of an imaginary city. In our opinion, the specific mention of Kṛṣṇa III as the lord of Kandhārapura scarcely raises any reasonable doubt about the existence of a city called Kandhārapura apparently built by and named after a Rāṣṭrakūṭa monarch named Kṛṣṇa.