Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c5.s1.1

c5.s1.1

It is well known that the poets at the courts of medieval Indian rulers often grossly exaggerated the achievements and status of their patrons. Sometimes even a small landlord enjoying the right of collecting taxes from a few villages only was endowed with epithets befitting an emperor. Thus several manuscripts copied about the beginning of the 18th century for Rājanārāyaṇa, the insignificant zamindar of Kāśijorā in the Midnapur District, West Bengal, represent the landlord as दोर्दण्ड-प्रबल-प्रताप-परम, प्रबलप्रतापान्वितराजाधिराज and महाराजाधिराज.¹ To illustrate the tendency to exaggerate in the court poets of the early-medieval kings of India, one may refer to the description of Candella Dhaṅga (c. 950-1002 A. D.) in an inscription from Khajuraho.²