गुप्त अभिलेख संग्रह (जे. एफ. फ्लीट - गुप्त सम्राटों एवं परवर्ती नरेशों के ऐतिहासिक पाषाण व ताम्रलेख)

10 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
Mangalîśa¹ shews that the dynastic name was very well established in at least the sixth
century A.D., and mentions it under the Sanskritised form of Kalatsûri. As, however, the
Kalachuris, in their later records, represent themselves as descendants of Sahasra-Arjuna
or Sahasrabâhu-Arjuna,² the required reference to them in the Allahâbâd inscription might
be found in the Ârjunâyanas, who are mentioned in line 22; and no special objection need
be taken on that ground. The real difficulty was to prove that the Kalachuri era, and, with
it, sovereigns of the Kalachuri dynasty, really existed in early times; and that the era
was not merely one of somewhat later invention, fitted to an early epoch. But, since the
time when I first drafted the preceding remarks, Prof. Kielhorn has determined, quite
recently,⁴ that, if we only take three of the ten dates in question as denoting expired years,
all the dates will work out correctly with the epoch of A.D. 248-49. It is, therefore, really
a question for consideration whether the Mahârâjas of Uchchakalpa were not indeed
feudatories of early kings of the Kalachuri dynasty; and whether the dates of their records
do not furnish the earliest instances of the use of the Kalachuri era. Unfortunately, these
Uchchakalpa dates do not contain details for computation; and the question, accordingly,
cannot at present be decided in that way.
The inscriptions contain various hints as to the causes which led to the downfall of
the Early Gupta sovereignty. But, looking round on all these intimations, with the
help of extraneous information, the person who accomplished their final extinction seems
ndoubtedly to have been the great king Mihirakula, of Śâkala in the Pañjâb, and subse-
quently of Kaśmîr, whose career in India is so graphically described by the Chinese pilgrim
Hiuen Tsiang. Among epigraphical records, his name had long been extant, though it
had not been recognised, in an inscription at Gwâlior, No. 37, page 161, where it occurs as
the name of a son of Tôramâṇa. I myself, when I first recognised the word as a proper
name, took it to be the appellation of a second Mihirakula, given in memory of his father
Tôramâṇa's former lord and master. The first discovery that militated against this view,
was, my finding that the great Mihirakula himself is mentioned in the Mandasôr duplicate
pillar inscriptions, No. 33, page 142, and No. 34, page 149, as having been overthrown by
a powerful king of Northern India named Yaśôdharman; shortly after which I obtained for
Yaśôdharman the date of A.D. 533-34, in the Mandasôr inscription, No. 35, page 150.
From certain details in their Êraṇ inscriptions, it was evident that Tôramâṇa came, in
Eastern Mâlwa, very shortly after Budhagupta; the proof of this is that Budhagupta's
inscription mentions a certain Mahârâja named Mâtṛivishṇu, and his younger brother
Dhanyavishṇu, as being both then alive; whereas Tôramâṇa's inscription mentions
Dhanyavishṇu as still alive, but Mâtṛivishṇu as deceased; and these statements shew that
Tôramâṇa followed Budhagupta, in Eastern Mâlwa, within the remnant of the generation
¹ See my Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, pp. 22, 58
² Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 250, line 16. ³ Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. IX. p. 92, verse 7.
⁴ See the Academy of the 10th December, 1887, p. 394 f.