402 Vestiges of the Kings of Gwalior. [No. 4, 



devotions. The family encomiast accords to his son Bhuvanapala, 

 the usual attributes of greatness, but has nothing specific to record 

 of him besides his having had " a son of great beauty, unsurpassed 

 by Karna in charity and the rival of Arjuna in archery." The 

 name of this worthy was Devapala, who bequeathed the family sceptre 

 to his son Padmapala. Several verses are devoted to record the glories 

 and charities of Padma, his expedition to the South (Dekkan), his 

 wars with demons (Rakshasas), and his dedication of temples to 

 Brahma, Vishnu, Lakshmi and Narasinha. He died childless, leaving 

 his principality to Mahipala the son of his brother Suryapala. Nearly 

 a third of the inscription is devoted to recount the glories of the 

 last named sovereign. He rivalled all the gods and goddesses of 

 the Hindu pantheon and surpassed every eminent object in nature 

 to which a prurient imagination could hold him in comparison. 

 During his reign a figure of Padmanatha — a Jain divinity — came 

 suddenly into existence, and to it he dedicated the temple by the 

 doorway of which the inscription under notice is recorded. He 

 caused a range of rooms to be built around the temple for the use of 

 the officiating priests, and cut flights of steps in the solid rock to 

 decorate the whole. Assignments of land in the district of Brahmapura 

 were made for the support of the temple, and a charity for feeding 

 the poor, and a large number of jewels and gold and silver utensils 

 were presented for the use of the idol. Among the donations, men- 

 tion is made of some jewellery and utensils for the idols of Aniruddha, 

 Bamana and Vishnu, but how this allusion to Hindu divinities came 

 to be made in a Jain record, put up by the entrance of a Jain temple, 

 it is difficult to divine; From Vajra-dama to Mahipala the seven 

 successive descendants of Lakshmana oscillated between Hinduism 

 and Jainism, but in Mahipala we find the same individual dividing 

 his faith equally between the two adverse creeds. 



The date of Vajra-dama has been recorded at 977 A. C, that of 

 Mahipala 1093 of the same era, giving 115 years for the seven, or an 

 average of 16f- years for each reign. If the date of Vajra's accession 

 and that of Mahipala's death could be ascertained, this average would 

 be slightly increased ; but as it is, it affords a close approximation 

 to the average of Indian reigns ascertained by James Prinsep. 



The successor of Mahipala was Bhuvanapala alias Manoratha, who 

 is described as a Vaishnava who resided at Mathura and was a pro- 



