Note 106 — K (continued 3)

In a note on the Rāshtrakutas, Mr. J. F. Fleet writes106 that “we find that, from the first appearance of the Chalukyas in this part of the country, in the fifth century A.D., the Kanarese districts of the Bombay Presidency were held by them, with short periods of interruption of their power caused by the invasions of the Pallavas and other kings, down to about the early part or the middle of the eighth century A.D. Their sway over this part of the country then ceased entirely for a time. This was due to an invasion by the Rāshtrakuta kings, who, like their predecessors, came from the north.... It is difficult to say when there was first a Rāshtrakuta kingdom. The earliest notices that we have of the family are contained in the western Chalukya inscriptions. Thus, the Miraj plates tell us that Jayasimha I, restored the fortunes of the Chalukya dynasty by defeating, among others, one Indra of the Rāshtrakuta family, who was the son of Krishna, and who possessed an army of eight hundred elephants; and there is little doubt that Āppāyika-Govinda, who, as we are told in the Aihole Meguti inscription, came from the north and invaded the Chalukya kingdom with his troops of elephants, and was repulsed by Pulikesi II, also belonged to this same dynasty. It is plain, therefore, that in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. the Rāshtrakuta dynasty was one of considerable importance in central or in northern India. The later inscriptions state that the Rāshtrakutas were of the Somavamsa or lunar race, and were descendants of Yadu. Dr. Burnell seems inclined to look upon the family as of Dravidian origin, as he gives ‘Rāshtra’ as an instance of the Sanskritising of Dravidian names, and considers it to be a mythological perversion for ‘Ratta,’ which is the same as the Kanarese and Telugu ‘Reddi.’ Dr. Bühler is unable to record any opinion as to ‘whether the Rāshtrakutas were an Āryan Kshatriya, i.e., Rājput race, which immigrated into the Dekkan from the north like the Chalukyas, or a Drāvidian family which was received into the Āryan community after the conquest of the Dekkan.’ The earliest inscriptions, at any rate, show them as coming from the north, and, whatever may be their origin, as the word Rāshtrakuta is used in many inscriptions of other dynasties as the equivalent of Rāshtrapati, i.e., as an official word meaning ‘the headman or governor of a country or district,’ it appears to me that the selection of it as a dynastic name implies that, prior to attaining independent sovereignty, the Rāshtrakutas were feudal chiefs under some previous dynasty, of which they have not preserved any record.”