History of Gujarát: Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part I.Campbell, James M.
History
History of Gujarát: Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part I.
Campbell, James M.
Gujarat (India) -- History
(1) Their close resemblance in palæography to one another and to
the forged grant of Dharasena II. of Valabhi dated Saka 400;
(2) That though they purport to belong to the fifth century they
bear the same writer's name as the Khedá grants of the seventh
century.
Further Mr. Fleet (Ind. Ant. XIII. 116) pointed out:
(3) That the description of Dadda I. in the Iláo and Umetá
grants agrees almost literally with that of Dadda II. in the
Khedá grants, and that where it differs the Khedá grants have
the better readings.
To these arguments Dr. Bühler has replied (Ind. Ant. XVII. 183):
(1) That though there is a resemblance between these grants and
that of Dharasena II., still it does not prove more than that the
forger of Dharasena's grant had one of the other grants before him;
(2) That, as the father's name of the writer is not given in the
Khedá grants, it cannot be assumed that he was the same person
as the writer of the Iláo and Umetá grants; and
(3) That genuine grants sometimes show that a description written
for one king is afterwards applied to another, and that good or
bad readings are no test of the age of a grant.
It may be admitted that Dr. Bühler has made it probable that the
suspected grants and the grant of Dharasena were not all written by
the same hand, and also that the coincidence in the writer's name is
not of much importance in itself. But the palæographical resemblance
between Dharasena's grant on the one hand and the doubtful Gurjjara
grants on the other is so close that they must have been written at
about the same time. As to the third point, the verbal agreement
between the doubtful grants on the one hand and the Khedá grants
on the other implies the existence of a continuous tradition in the
record office of the dynasty from the end of the fifth till near the
middle of the seventh century. But the Sankhedá grant of Nirihullaka
(Ep. Ind. II. 21) shows that towards the end of the sixth century the
lower Narbadá valley was occupied by jungle tribes who acknowledged
the supremacy of the Kalachuris. Is it reasonable to suppose that
after the first Gurjjara line was thus displaced, the restorers of the
dynasty should have had any memory of the forms in which the first line
drew up their grants? At any rate, if they had, they would also have
retained their original seal, which, as the analogy of the Valabhi
plates teaches us, would bear the founder's name. But we find that
the seal of the Khedá plates bears the name "Sámanta Dadda," who
can be no other than the "Sámanta Dadda" who ruled from C. 585-605
A.D. It follows that the Gurjjaras of the seventh century themselves
traced back their history in Broach no further than A.D. 585. Again,
it has been pointed out in the text that a passage in the description
of Dadda II. (A.D. 620-650) in the Khedá grants seems to refer to his
protection of the Valabhi king, so that the description must have been
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