Impact of Vedic Culture on Society
by Kaushik Acharya | 2020 | 120,081 words
This page relates ‘Sanskrit Inscriptions (C): Guhilas of Kishkindhapura’ of the study on the Impact of Vedic Culture on Society as Reflected in Select Sanskrit Inscriptions found in Northern India (4th Century CE to 12th Century CE). These pages discuss the ancient Indian tradition of Dana (making gifts, donation). They further study the migration, rituals and religious activities of Brahmanas and reveal how kings of northern India granted lands for the purpose of austerities and Vedic education.
Sanskrit Inscriptions (C): Guhilās of Kiṣkindhāpura
[Study of Sanskrit Inscriptions Issued During Early and Early Medieval Period (C): Guhilās of Kiṣkindhāpura]
During the middle of the 7th to 8th century, several new dynasties began to emerge in Northern India. One of these was the early Guhilā family of Kiṣkindhapura, which was a locality in the Udaipur-Dungarpur region of Rajasthan. The first two members of the dynasty, Devagaṇa and Pādda were erstwhile feudatories of Harṣa of Kanauj and gained prominence in the early years of the seventh century. Subsequent rulers did not name the kings under whom they held semi-independent positions. D. C. Sircar,[1] however, mentions that the later Guhilās of Kiṣkindhyāpura owed allegiance to the Mauryas or Moris, after the death of Harṣavardhana. The latter had possibly extended their hold over a large part of Rajasthan.
The successor of Devagana, the Guhilā King Bhāvihita, issued a grant Dungarpur Plates in the year c. 655 CE.[2] It refers to the Brāhmaṇa Āsangaśarman, son of Indraśarman, whose family emigrated from Ujjayini or Ujjain, but who himself at the time of the grant was a resident of Kuragirika.[3] He was a sabrahmacārī of Mādhyandina branch of Śukla-Yajurveda and received a village in the Purapaṭṭa-viṣaya, the location was the area around the capital city of Kiṣkindhapura in the Udaipur-Dungarpur region according to D.C. Sircar.[4] So, the ancestors of Asangaśarman had left their home in Ujjayini, in Mālwa region in Madhya Pradesh and migrated to Rajasthan some time before the date of the grant.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
EI, vol. XXXIV, p. 170.
[2]:
USVAE, vol. IV, part II, pp. 44-52.
[3]:
EI, vol. XXXIV, p. 172.
[4]:
He further points out, that it is difficult to say, whether Purapatta is a geographical name, or whether it has been used in the sense of paṭṭa-viṣaya or metropolitan district around the pura or the capital. According to him, the early Guhilās of Mewar ruled in the Udaipur division, while the copper-plates of the Guhilās of Kiṣkindhapura, have all been discovered at Dungarpur, to the south of Udaipur. Hence this Kiṣkindhapur cannot be the same as Kekind in the old Jodhpur state, to the north-west of Udaipur. On the other hand, he identifies it with Kiṣkindha which is a ruined city in the vicinity of Kalyanpura in the Bhomat district of Udaipur, bordering on the Dungarpur region, and which is the Ki ṣk indha of the Dhulev Plates of Bhetți of the Guhilā family.