A dynasty/kingdom called Graha Mandala ruled over eastern parts of Central India and their territory lay along the banks of the Narmada. Their first capital is said to have been Garha, now part of the city of Jabalpur. However, Alexander Cunningham, based on his understanding of the Kalachuri Inscriptions, says that the Chedi dynasty ruled over this area, their capital being Tewar or Tripura close to Garha.[1] I have tried to locate this place with the help of Google Maps but I haven’t been able to find such a place near Garha or Jabalpur. Cunningham locates the early Gond territory near upper Narmada region comprising of Mandla, Ramgarh and Shahpur, ‘with the whole, or greater part, of Balaghat’.[2]  The tenth king (genealogical list given below) Gopala is said to have built Gopalpur to the west of the early seat Garha.

In 1830s, E. Fell found an inscription at Graha Mandala and from the translation he found a complete list of rulers of the region. Fell theorises that the fifty two kings before Hridaya, who became king in 1617, would have reigned twenty years each which would then take the origin of the dynasty to 1040 years from the date of Hridaya. Consequently, the first king, Yadava Raya would have ruled in circa AD 627.[3]

In 1860s, Fitz-Edward Hall, in his article wrote a commentary on the inscriptions and also provided the facsimile of the inscriptions along with his translations. In this article Hall mentions that some years after E. Fell’s contribution, which was published posthumously, Sir Henry Sleeman expanded on the genealogical study of Gond rulers.[4] Sleeman retrieved some local documents comprising of two manuscripts in the ‘Hindi language, of anonymous authorship’ which gave an account of the Mandala rulers.[5] Hall possessed the copies of these two manuscripts and bases his account and analysis of the rulers on these two and also of the account given by Ferishta.

Hall states that according to the manuscripts, the copies of which he possessed and which were referred to by Sleeman, the earliest ruler of Mandala were Haihaya Rajputs, descendants of the ‘thousand-armed Arjuna’. Hall relates that according to a story then current, a copper plate with inscription was found in the days of the rule of Nizam Shah (60^th ruler) dated AD 143.[6] According to this copper plate the territories ruled by the Mandala rulers included Ratnapura, Lanji, and Mandala. Upon extinction of these Rajput families, the Gonds took charge of the area.

It is interesting to note that in time due to matrimonial alliances the lineage became a Gond-Rajput line of kings, as described by Sleeman. Though, Alexander Cunningham, fifty years later, discounts this romantic story. I would, however, like to narrate it here for my readers to make their own inference.[7] The story goes that Mahishmati of the Gonds one day decided to repair to Amarkantak for ‘ceremonial ablution’. Amongst his train of followers was one Yadava Raya, a Kachhwaha Rajput of Khandesh. While on night duty as a sentry in the camp, he noticed the movement of two men and a woman who he presumed to be Gonds, and he noticed a monkey following them after dropping a peacock feather. During his sleep later on, Narmada River in the form of a Goddess appeared in his dream. She informed him that the two men and woman were none other than Ram, Lakshman and Sita, and the monkey was Hanuman. She advised him of his propitious fortune of having seen the revered family in real and that the dropping of the peacock feather, which is worn on the heads of Gonds, as being indicative of his defeating the Gonds and taking rein of the territory. He was directed to move to the state of Garha (written as Gadha in the source) and get in service of the ruler Nagdeo[8] there, and should, by and bye, gain full confidence of the ruler who would in due course of time voluntarily demit power in his favour. In this endeavour he had to take the help of a Brahmin named Sarve Pathaka who must be rewarded with the post of a premier. And so the story goes that Yadava Raya travelled to Garha where after gaining the Garha King’s confidence, he was offered the king’s daughter Ratnavali’s hand. Yadava apparently was a widower and due to mismatch of caste between the two parties, Yadava turned to the Brahmin for guidance. Sarve Pathaka gave assent to the marriage on the conditions that the bride and groom would never eat together. The Garha ruler was agreeable to the condition and Yadava was married to the daughter of the ruler of Garha which marked the beginning of Gond-Rajput lines of descendants. Soon the aging ruler decided to renounce his kingship in favour of Yadava. The ruler of Garha retained the revenue of five villages for his maintenance.[9]

Yadava was crowned king most probably in Samvat 415 corresponding to A.D. 357. Sarve Pathaka was made the Prime Minister. Yadava ruled for five years and in those five years he extended the territory of his kingdom to the Gaura River on one end and River Hiren on the other end. It is believed that Sarve Pathaka’s descendants continued to serve the subsequent Yadava’s descendants in various capacities. The Bhar Vajpeyi clan trace their lineage to Sarve Pathaka.[10]

Hall in his article published the facsimile of the inscription found in Ramnagar in the Mandla district of present day Madhya Pradesh. E. Fell translated the inscription which was published after his death. H. H. Wilson wrote the following comment on the finding of the inscription and its translation:

The Garha Mandala inscription is remarkable for the genealogy of a race of princes who exercised the sovereignty over part of Central Hindustan, in which the enumeration much exceeds that of any inscription yet discovered.[11]

The complete facsimile of the inscription and its translation by E. Fell are appended at the end of this article.

Later in the 1880s, Sir Alexander Cunningham published in detail Sleeman’s finding on the Gond rulers. The chart below gives the complete list of kings as per the inscriptions and also the kings that reigned after the last mentioned King Hridayaswara till 1804 when the last ruler Sumer Shah was killed. The table also includes the length of reign as per Sleeman’s information gleaned from a local. There are differences in dates as suggested by Fell and Sleeman in the enthronement of some kings. The table gives the dates as given by Sleeman.[12]

The length of reign of the 26th ruler, Karnnotha Ratna Sena is not clear so two numbers are assigned to him.

Appended below is the inscription which is followed by the Fell’s translation.

References

[1] Alexander Cunningham, ‘Report of a Tour in the Central Provinces and Lower Gangetic Doab in 1881-82’, Archaeological Survey of India Report, Volume XVII (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1884), pp. 46-55.

[2] Alexander Cunningham, ‘Report of a Tour in the Central Provinces and Lower Gangetic Doab in 1881-82’, Archaeological Survey of India Report, Volume XVII (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1884), pp. 46-55.

[3] E. Fell, ‘Sanscrit Inscriptions; With Observations by H. H. Wilson’, Asiatic Researches; or, Transactions of the Society Instituted in Bengal, for Enquiring into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, and Sciences, and Literature of Asia, Volume XV (Serampore: The Mission Press, 1825), pp. 432-469.

[4] W. Henry Sleeman, ‘History of the Gruha Mandala Rajas’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Volume VI, No. 68, August 1837, pp. 623-648.

[5] Fitz-Edward Hall, ‘On the Kings of Mandala, as Commemorated in a Sanskrit Inscription now First Printed in the Original Tongue’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Seventh Volume ( New Haven: 1862), pp. 1-23 JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/592154 accessed 28 March, 2020.

[6] Fitz-Edward Hall, ‘On the Kings of Mandala, as Commemorated in a Sanskrit Inscription now First Printed in the Original Tongue’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Seventh Volume ( New Haven: 1862), pp. 1-23 JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/592154 accessed 28 March, 2020.

[7] Alexander Cunningham, ‘Report of a Tour in the Central Provinces and Lower Gangetic Doab in 1881-82’, Archaeological Survey of India Report, Volume XVII (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1884), pp. 46-55

[8] W. Henry Sleeman, ‘History of the Gruha Mandala Rajas’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Volume VI, No. 68, August 1837, pp. 623-648.

[9] Fitz-Edward Hall, ‘On the Kings of Mandala, as Commemorated in a Sanskrit Inscription now First Printed in the Original Tongue’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Seventh Volume ( New Haven: 1862), pp. 1-23 JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/592154 accessed 28 March, 2020.

[10] Fitz-Edward Hall, ‘On the Kings of Mandala, as Commemorated in a Sanskrit Inscription now First Printed in the Original Tongue’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Seventh Volume ( New Haven: 1862), pp. 1-23 JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/592154 accessed 28 March, 2020.

[11] E. Fell, ‘Sanscrit Inscriptions; With Observations by H. H. Wilson’, Asiatic Researches; or, Transactions of the Society Instituted in Bengal, for Enquiring into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, and Sciences, and Literature of Asia, Volume XV (Serampore: The Mission Press, 1825), pp. 432-469

[12] Alexander Cunningham, ‘Report of a Tour in the Central Provinces and Lower Gangetic Doab in 1881-82’, Archaeological Survey of India Report, Volume XVII (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1884), pp. 46-55