Note 4 — Chapter I · THE CHÁVAḌÁS (a.d. 720–956.)

Jayaśekhara, a.d. 696.The author of the Ratnamálá (C. 1230 a.d.) says that in a.d. 696 (S. 752) Jayaśekhara the Chávaḍá king of Pañchásar was attacked by the Chaulukya king Bhuvaḍa of Kalyánakaṭaka in Kanyákubja or Kanoj and slain by Bhuvaḍa in battle. Before his death Jayaśekhara, finding his affairs hopeless, sent his pregnant wife Rupasundarí to the forest in charge of her brother Surapála, one of his chief warriors. After Jayaśekhara’s death Rupasundarí gave birth to a son named Vanarája who became the illustrious founder of Aṇahilaváḍa. It is hard to say how much truth underlies this tradition. In the seventh century not Chaulukya but Pála kings flourished in Kanoj. No place of importance called Kalyánakaṭaka is recorded in the Kanoj territory. And though there was a southern Chálukya kingdom with its capital at Kalyán, its establishment at Kalyán was about the middle of the eleventh not in the seventh century. Further the known Dakhan Chálukya lists contain no king named Bhuvaḍa, unless he be the great Chálukya king Vijayáditya (a.d. 696–733) also called Bhuvanásraya, who warred in the north and was there imprisoned but made his escape. The inference is that the author of the Ratnamálá, knowing the Solaṅkis originally belonged to a city called Kalyán, and knowing that a Chálukya king named Bhuvaḍa had defeated the Chávaḍás may have called Bhuvaḍa king of Kalyánkaṭaka and identified Kalyánkaṭaka with a country so well known to Puráṇic fame as Kanyákubja. This view is supported by the absence in the Prabandhachintámaṇi and other old records of any mention of an invasion from Kanoj. It is possible that in a.d. 696 some king Bhuvaḍa of the Gujarát Chálukyas, of whom at this time branches were ruling as far north as Kaira,4 invaded the Chávaḍás under Jayaśekhara. Since traces of a Chávoṭaka kingdom remain, at least as late as a.d. 720, it seems probable that the destruction of Pañchásar was caused not by Bhuvaḍa in a.d. 696, but in the Arab raid mentioned above whose date falls about a.d. 720.5 About a.d. 720 may therefore be taken as the date Chapter I. The Chávaḍás, a.d. 720–956. Jayaśekhara, a.d. 696. of the birth of Vanarája. Merutuṇga the author of the Prabandhachintámaṇi tells how Rupasundarí was living in the forest swinging her son in a hammock, when a Jain priest named Śílaguṇasúri noticing as he passed royal marks on the boy bought him from his mother. The story adds that a nun named Víramatí brought up the boy whom the sádhu called Vanarája or the forest king. When eight years old, the priest employed Vanarája to protect his place of worship from rats. The boy’s skill in shooting rats convinced the priest he was not fit to be a sádhu but was worthy of a kingdom. He therefore returned the boy to his mother. These details seem invented by the Jains in their own honour. No mention of any such story occurs in the Ratnamálá.6