Inscription number 51.
Mallar Plates of Pravara 1 and Vyaghraraja.
-Year 41 of Pravara 1.
Provenance: Mallar, 26 kms from Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh.
Genealogical table of Sarabhapura dynasty.
(vide, their copper-charter seals and the present inscription)
1 Sarabha
2. Narendra son of Sarabha
3. Prasanna or Prasannamatra son of Narendra.
4. Jaya son of Prasanna
6. Durga alias Manamatra son of Prasanna
5.Pravara & Vyaghra sons of Jaya
7. Sudeva & Pravara 2, sons of Durga
Vyaghra figures here as younger brother of Pravara.
Prasanna is known from the seals of his son Jayaraja and grandson Sudevaraja. He is also known from some gold coins that mention his name as Prasannamatra. The issuance of gold coins suggests that he was a powerful ruler & ruled a big territory. The coins feature a standing Garuda flanked, flanked by a crescent moon, a wheel and a conch-shell.
Jayaraja was a son of Prasanna. He was the first ruler of the dynasty to add the prefix Mahat to his name, a practice followed not only by his descendants but also by the kings of the later dynasties such as Panduvanshis.
Pravararaja was son of Jayaraja. He moved his kingdom’s capital from Sharabhapura to Shripura.
This inscription of one Vyaghraraja, younger brother of Pravara Bhattaraka, was discovered at Mallar. Most of this dynasty’s grants have been found in and around Malhar and Raipur, in the kosala region.
Some scholars add Mahendraditya of a gold coin, discovered with Bhandara hoard, Chanda district in South
Kosala, M,P. (J.N.S.I, XVI, pp-216) to this table, placing him, before Sarabha. They identify him with the Kosalaka,
Mahendra, whom Samudragupta, in his Allahabad Prasasti, (Supra II, 5) claims
to have captured and reinstated.
S. L. Katare assigns many
other coins discovered in South Kosala,such as those in Kharial
hoard to this Mahendraditya of Sarabhapura family. (Ep.Ind..
XXXI, pp.105, and n.1)But D.C. Sircar rejects this identification, on the ground that birudas ending in-aditya came
into vogue after their use by several Gupta kings, and hence
Mahendraditya of these coins should be placed after the time of
Kumara-gupta 1 (see ibid., pp.105, n.2)
Script: Nail-headed (with hollow triangular head) Southern Brahmi of the 6th century AD.
Language: Sanskrit.
Metres: vv. 1-4: अनुष्टुभ श्लोक
References: D.C. Sircar and G. Bhattacharya, EP.Ind, XXXIV, pp.45-50.
English Translation of the inscription.
Peace (Issued) from Prasannapura resplendent with gardens and forests, surpassing the fame of the city of
gods, and purified by the river Nidila, whose waters are broken up by the impact of round hips of the best ladies
(or, the ladies of Pravara). The illustrious Vyaghradeva, the younger brother of the Manu-like king, the illustrious, Lord Pravara, whose bright fame as that of Prithu, earned with
the prowess of his two broad arms, adornes the entire sphere of the earth and who is the son of the illustrious Lord Jaya, who was like the moon in the firmament of the Amararya
family, who was the home of the cluster of all the arts, who had conquered the quality of darkness (i.e ignorance), who
was a Joy to the eyes of the people commands the honourable officers of the king after paying respects to the
living and future Brahmanas-
Be it known to you that we have granted this village Kunturapadraka, situated in the Eastern District, for the
increase of religious merit of (my) mother and father and
myself, to Dikshita Agnichandra-svamin, son of Dikshita
Durgasvamin, of Kapya Angirasa gotra and a scholar of the Rigveda. Having learnt thus you should also confirm and
protect it. (Here follow four of the usual benedictory and imprecatory verses)
The increasingly victorious year 41, the 27th day, of (the month of) Pausha. The work was carried out by Jyeshtha-simha.
Seal The illustrious Vyaghraraja.
Footnote-1.
1. This is the first record of a Sarabhapuriya Prince,
to mention the name of their family.
2. He possibly belonged to the Kapi or Kapya gotra, with Angiras or Angirasa as one of its pravaras.
Footnote-2.
1. Note that the seal is totally unlike the seals of the Sarabhapuriya kings, which exhibit the Gaja-Lakshmi emblem in the upper part and a legend below in
anushtubh metre, written in two lines in book-headed characters of central India, while the present seal bears in the upper part from left to right, the side view of a chakra, the head of an animal, (probably a lion) to front and a conch shell This is, perhaps, because, Vyagra was issuing this plate not as the
Sovereign, but as a prince and could not use the ruler’s seal.
2. Prasannapura, the Nidila river Kunturapadraka and
Purvarashtra cannot be identified.