Chapter X · THE GURJJARAS (a.d. 580–808.)
Reading edition
Their copperplates and seals closely resemble the plates and seals of the Gujarát Chálukyas. The characters of all but the forged grants are like those of Gujarát Chálukya grants and belong to the Gujarát variety of the Southern India style. At the same time it is to be noted that the royal signature at the end of the plates is of the northern type, proving that the Gurjjaras were originally northerners. The language of most of the grants is Sanskrit prose as in Valabhi plates in a style curiously like the style of the contemporary author Báṇa in his great works the Kádambarí and Harshacharita. From this it may be inferred that Báṇa’s style was not peculiar to himself but was the style in general use in India at that time.
Gurjjara Tree.The following is the Gurjjara family tree:
Dadda I. a.d. 580.
Jayabhaṭa I. a.d. 605.
Dadda II. a.d. 633.
Jayabhaṭa II. a.d. 655.
Dadda III. a.d. 680.
Jayabhaṭa III. a.d. 706–734.
Jayabhaṭa I. Vítarága, C. 605–620 a.d.Dadda I. was succeeded by his son Jayabhaṭa I. who is mentioned in the Kheḍá grants as a victorious and virtuous ruler, and appears from his title of Vítarága the Passionless to have been a religious prince.
Jayabhaṭa II. C. 650–675 a.d.The successor of Dadda II. was his son Jayabhaṭa II. who is described as a warlike prince, but of whom no historical details are recorded.
After a.d. 734–5 no further mention occurs of the Gurjjaras of Broach. Whether the dynasty was destroyed by the Arabs or by the Gujarát Ráshṭrakúṭas (a.d. 750) is not known. Later references to Gurjjaras in Ráshṭrakúṭa times refer to the Gurjjaras of Bhínmál not to the Gurjjaras of Broach, who, about the time of Dadda III. (C. 675–700 a.d.), ceased to call themselves Gurjjaras.
A few words must be said regarding the three grants from Iláo, Umetá, and Bagumrá (Ind. Ant. XIII. 116, VII. 61, and XVII. 183) as their genuineness has been assumed by Dr. Bühler in his recent paper on the Mahábhárata, in spite of Mr. Fleet’s proof (Ind. Ant. XVIII. 19) that their dates do not work out correctly.
Dr. Bhagvánlál’s (Ind. Ant. XIII. 70) chief grounds for holding that the Umetá and Iláo grants (the Bagumrá grant was unknown to him) were forgeries were:
(1) Their close resemblance in palæography to one another and to the forged grant of Dharasena II. of Valabhi dated Śaka 400;
(2) That though they purport to belong to the fifth century they bear the same writer’s name as the Kheḍá grants of the seventh century.
Further Mr. Fleet (Ind. Ant. XIII. 116) pointed out:
(3) That the description of Dadda I. in the Iláo and Umetá grants agrees almost literally with that of Dadda II. in the Kheḍá grants, and that where it differs the Kheḍá grants have the better readings.
To these arguments Dr. Bühler has replied (Ind. Ant. XVII. 183):
(1) That though there is a resemblance between these grants and that of Dharasena II., still it does not prove more than that the forger of Dharasena’s grant had one of the other grants before him;
(2) That, as the father’s name of the writer is not given in the Kheḍá grants, it cannot be assumed that he was the same person as the writer of the Iláo and Umetá grants; and Chapter X. The Gurjjaras, a.d. 580–808.
(3) That genuine grants sometimes show that a description written for one king is afterwards applied to another, and that good or bad readings are no test of the age of a grant.
It may be admitted that Dr. Bühler has made it probable that the suspected grants and the grant of Dharasena were not all written by the same hand, and also that the coincidence in the writer’s name is not of much importance in itself. But the palæographical resemblance between Dharasena’s grant on the one hand and the doubtful Gurjjara grants on the other is so close that they must have been written at about the same time. As to the third point, the verbal agreement between the doubtful grants on the one hand and the Kheḍá grants on the other implies the existence of a continuous tradition in the record office of the dynasty from the end of the fifth till near the middle of the seventh century. But the Saṅkheḍá grant of Nirihullaka (Ep. Ind. II. 21) shows that towards the end of the sixth century the lower Narbadá valley was occupied by jungle tribes who acknowledged the supremacy of the Kalachuris. Is it reasonable to suppose that after the first Gurjjara line was thus displaced, the restorers of the dynasty should have had any memory of the forms in which the first line drew up their grants? At any rate, if they had, they would also have retained their original seal, which, as the analogy of the Valabhi plates teaches us, would bear the founder’s name. But we find that the seal of the Kheḍá plates bears the name “Sámanta Dadda,” who can be no other than the “Sámanta Dadda” who ruled from C. 585–605 a.d. It follows that the Gurjjaras of the seventh century themselves traced back their history in Broach no further than a.d. 585. Again, it has been pointed out in the text that a passage in the description of Dadda II. (a.d. 620–650) in the Kheḍá grants seems to refer to his protection of the Valabhi king, so that the description must have been written for him and not for the fifth century Dadda as Dr. Bühler’s theory requires.
These points coupled with Mr. Fleet’s proof (Ind. Ant. XVIII. 91) that the Śaka dates do not work out correctly, may perhaps be enough to show that none of these three grants can be relied upon as genuine.—(A. M. T. J.)