Radhanpur plates of Govinda III

The Radhanpur plates are a grant of the Rashtrakuta king Govinda III.¹² Their verses on his reign include the best-known Rashtrakuta claim over the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi.¹² They say that the lord of Vengi came at Govinda’s command and built a great enclosure for him.¹²

The plates

G. Bühler first edited the grant in the Indian Antiquary, from the original plates.³ The Radhanpur State lent them through the Political Superintendent of Palanpur.³ F. Kielhorn edited it again in Epigraphia Indica VI (1901), from ink impressions that J. F. Fleet had received in 1884.³ By then, the owner of the plates was no longer known.³

There are two copper plates, and the first is engraved on one side only.³ A third plate, which completed the grant, is lost, and so are the ring and seal.³ The letters belong to the northern class of alphabets.⁴ The language is Sanskrit, with some names from the southern local languages in the formal part of the grant.⁴

Contents

After the opening verse, the grant has nineteen verses of praise.⁴ They praise Krishna I, his son Dhora (Dhruva), and Dhruva’s son Govindaraja, the donor.⁴ Most of these verses also occur in the Wani grant.⁴ All nineteen occur in the Manne grant, though often in a corrupt form.⁴

The prose part records a gift by Govinda, made while he was staying at Mayurakhandi.⁵⁶ He gave the village of Rattajjuna, in the Rasiyana district (the modern Rasin in the Ahmadnagar district), to a Brahmin named Paramesvarabhatta.⁵⁶ He made the gift on the occasion of an eclipse of the sun.⁵⁶

Fleet in 1896 equated the date with 7 August 807.⁷⁶ Kielhorn showed that it is 27 July 808, when there was a total eclipse of the sun that could be seen in India.⁷⁶

The verses tell of Govinda’s deeds after his father’s death:¹

• he defeated twelve kings who had joined against him¹
• he released a captive Ganga king, and then imprisoned him again¹
• he put the Gurjara king to flight¹
• he received the submission of the lord of Malava and of a king named Marasarva in the Vindhyas¹
• he passed the rainy season at Sribhavana¹
• he then marched to the Tungabhadra, where he took tribute from the Pallavas¹

The lord of Vengi

Verse 19 follows.¹ In Kielhorn’s translation, it begins: “Thither the lord of Vengi repaired when (the king’s) letter-carrier had only half uttered the command”.¹ The lord of Vengi, “longing for his own comfort, steadily like a servant without ceasing did such toil” that he built an enclosure for Govinda’s camp.¹ This enclosure was “touching the summit of the sky”.¹ At night it “seemed to assume a garland of pearls, surrounded as it was by the groups of stars above it.”¹

Fleet identified the lord of Vengi with the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya II.² Vijayaditya II reigned from 799 to 843.² His own family claimed for him a hundred and eight battles against the Gangas and the Rashtrakutas.² The walled place has been read in three ways.

• Fleet (1896) took it to be a city then being built or fortified as a capital, “the Manyakheta of subsequent records, and the modern Malkhed”.² The event is mentioned in this Radhanpur grant, but not in the Wani grant of the April before.² Fleet then dated the Radhanpur grant to August 807.² So he dated the event to just before the rains of 807.² Kielhorn later showed that the grant is of 27 July 808 (see above).⁶
• Fleet (1901) noted that the word “where” in the verse places the enclosure on or near the Tungabhadra.⁸ It might have been only the fortification of a large camp, probably near the meeting of the Tungabhadra and the Krishna.⁸ But Malkhed was only some eighty-five or ninety miles away.⁸ He still thought it “very likely” that Govinda chose it as his capital then, and had its outer walls built by the king of Vengi.⁸
• Kielhorn (1901) translated the word as “the enclosure constructed thereby for His camp”.¹

Robert Sewell wrote that Govinda had moved his capital to Malkhed before 802.⁹ By then, in Sewell’s account, Govinda had ordered the Vengi king to build its fortifications.⁹ The year 802 is the date of the Manne plates.⁹ In Sewell’s summary, these plates also say that the king of Vengi built the walls of a fortress for Govinda.⁹

Footnotes

1. Kielhorn, “Radhanpur Plates of Govinda III” (1901), p. 250, translation of verses 13–20 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶

2. J. F. Fleet, “Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts”, Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency I, pt. II (1896), p. 396 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. F. Kielhorn, “Radhanpur Plates of Govinda III; Saka-Samvat 730”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1901), p. 239 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. Kielhorn, “Radhanpur Plates of Govinda III” (1901), p. 240 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

5. Kielhorn, “Radhanpur Plates of Govinda III” (1901), p. 241 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Kielhorn, “Radhanpur Plates of Govinda III” (1901), p. 242 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

7. Fleet, “Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts” (1896), p. 398 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

8. J. F. Fleet, “Three Western Ganga Records in the Mysore Government Museum at Bangalore”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1901), p. 64, note 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 33 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴