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
[Indra Nityamvarsha, A.D. 914.] Krishna or Akálavarsha had a son named
Jagattunga who does not appear to have come to the throne. Other plates
show that he went to Chedi the modern Bundelkhand and remained there
during his father's lifetime. By Lakshmí the daughter of the king
of Chedi, Jagattunga had a son named Indra also called Nityamvarsha
Rattakandarpa. In both of Indra's Navsárí copperplates (A.D. 914)
Indra is mentioned as Pádánudhyáta, Falling at the feet of, that is
successor of, not his father but his grandfather Akálavarsha. [447]
One historical attribute of Indra in both the plates is that "he
uprooted in a moment the Mehr," [448] apparently referring to some
contemporary Mehr king of North Káthiáváda. Both the Navsárí plates
of Saka 836 (A.D. 914) note that the grants were made under peculiar
conditions. The plates say that the donor Indra Nityamvarsha, with
his capital at Mányakheta, had come to a place named Kurundaka for
the pattabandha or investiture festival. It is curious that though
Mányakheta is mentioned as the capital the king is described as having
come to Kurundaka for the investiture. Kurundaka was apparently not
a large town as the plates mention that it was given in grant. [449]
At his investiture Indra made great gifts. He weighed himself against
gold or silver, and before leaving the scales he gave away Kurundaka
and other places, twenty and a half lákhs of dramma coins, and 400
villages previously granted but taken back by intervening kings. These
details have an air of exaggeration. At the same time gifts of coins
by lákhs are not improbable by so mighty a king as Indra and as to
the villages the bulk of them had already been alienated. The fact of
lavish grants is supported by the finding of these two plates of the
same date recording grants of two different villages made on the same
occasion, the language being the same, and also by a verse in the late
Ráshtrakúta Kardá plate (S. 894, A.D. 972) where Indra is described
as making numerous grants on copperplates and building many temples
of Siva. [450] The date of Indra's grants (S. 836, A.D. 914) is the
date of his investiture and accession. This is probable as the latest
known date of his grandfather Krishna is Saka 833 [451] (A.D. 911)
and we know that Indra's father Jagattunga did not reign. [452]
Umvará and Tenna, the villages granted in the two investiture plates,
are described as situated near Kammanijja the modern Kámlej in the
Láta province. They are probably the modern villages of Umra near
Sáyan four miles west of Kámlej, and of Tenna immediately to the west
of Bárdoli, which last is mentioned under the form Váradapallikâ as
the eastern boundary village. Dhruva II.'s Bagumrá plate (S. 789,
A.D. 867) mentions Tenna as granted by Dhruva I. to a Bráhman named
Dhoddi the father of the Nennapa who is the grantee of Dhruva II.'s
A.D. 867 Bagumrá grant, whose son Siddhabhatta is the grantee of
Indra's A.D. 914 grant. [453] The re-granting of so many villages
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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