64 R. D. BANERJI ON 



(i) Om Samvat 8 | Srl-M ahindrapala I rajyabhise- 

 (2) -ka 1 Saudi Risi putra Sahadevasya. 



" Om, the year 8 (from) the coronation of Mahindrapala. (The gift) of Saha- 

 deva, the son of the Risi (Rsi) Saudi (Sauri)." 



Mahendrapala, in the ninth or tenth centuries a.d., immediately suggests the 

 name of the son of Bhoja I, the great Pratihara Emperor Mahendrapaladeva. A 

 comparison with the Asni inscription of Mahipala confirmed me in the opinion that 

 no other person than the great Pratihara monarch was being referred to. The forms 

 of P and / are very much similar to those used in Asni inscription and the Ghos- 

 rawan inscription of Devapala. Moreover, the form of the name is identical with that 

 used in the Asni inscription, where we find the name as Mahindrapala, and not 

 Mahendrapala as in other inscriptions. Dr. Fleet read this name as Mahisapala. 

 I saw a beautiful impression of this inscription in the Allahabad exibition of 191 o- 

 11, and there the name is clearly legible as Mahindrapala. Another inscription of 

 Mahendrapala is to be found at Gunariya, near the Grand Trunk Road, in the Gaya 

 District, which was brought to notice by Major Kittoe. Kittoe's drawing of the 

 inscribed portion of the sculpture is very clear and the record can be edited from 



it:— 



(1) Ye dharmma hetu prabhava hclini — tcsam ta- 



(2) -thagato hy = avadat tesamca yo nivodho cvam va- 



(3) -dl maha&ramanah \ Samvat 9 Vatiakha. 



(4) Sudi 5 Sn-Guna- 



(5) -carita Sn-Malundrapd- 



(6) -ladcvarajyc dcvadlut- 



(7) -rmmeyam . . . 



Kittoe found a third inscription of this king somewhere in Bihar, but as he did 

 not state the exact locality, it is no use searching for it. Some day it will come up 

 as a new discovery of some one who chances to stumble on it. According to Major 

 Kittoe this inscription was dated in the 19th year of the king: — 



" One mentions the fact of the party having apostatized, and again returned to 

 the worship of the Sakya, in the 19th year of the reign of Sri Mahendrapaladeva." 

 There are two votive inscriptions of Mahendrapaladeva in the British Museum. One 

 of these records the erection, most probably, of an image by a Buddhist monk named 

 Kusuma in the ninth year of Mahendrapala. 3 The nature of the contents of the other 

 inscription is not known, but it is dated in the second year of Mahendrapaladeva. 

 It may be that the third inscription mentioned by Major Kittoe, has found its way, 

 by some means or other, into the British Museum: As for the reading of the date, 

 there need not be any difficulty about that, as Kittoe's readings are invariably faulty. 

 So we have definite proof that in the eight and ninth years of the king Mahendra- 

 pala, Magadha formed an integral part of the Gurjara -Pratihara Empire, which at 

 that time extended from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. 4 



1 Ind. Ant., Vol. XVI, p. 174. 8 J.A.S B., Vol. XVII, 1848 pt. I, p. 238. 



S Nachr. v. d. Konigl. Ges. d. Wis. z. Gotting., pliil.-hist. Kl. 1904. PP- 210-11 * Epi. Ind., Vol IX, p. 4 



