Vasishtha Dynasty

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Find spot Provenance () is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, p ...

s of the Vasishtha inscriptions" width="400" height="400" zoom="7" longitude="83.89" latitude="18.25"> The Vasishtha (

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Brahmic family, Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that ...

: Vāsiṣṭha) dynasty ruled in the Kalinga region of eastern India in the fifth century CE. Their territory included parts of the present-day northern

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. They were one of the three minor dynasties that emerged after the decline of the

Gupta Gupta () is a common surname of Indian origin, meaning "guardian" or "protector". Origins and distribution The name is based on the Sanskrit word गोप्तृ ''goptṛ'', which means "guardian" or "protector". According to historian ...

power in the area, the other two being the Matharas and the Pitrbhaktas.

Genealogy

The Vasishtha king Anantavarman is known from his Siripuram and Srungavarapukota copper-plate inscriptions. These epigraphs describe him as a son of

Maharaja Maharaja (also spelled Maharajah or Maharaj; ; feminine: Maharani) is a royal title in Indian subcontinent, Indian subcontinent of Sanskrit origin. In modern India and Medieval India, medieval northern India, the title was equivalent to a pri ...

Prabhanjanavarman, and a grandson of Maharaja Gunavarman. Thus, three rulers of the dynasty are known: * ''Maharaja'' Gunavarman * ''Maharaja'' Prabhanjanavarman * ''Parameshvara'' Anantavarman

Territory

The Siripuram and Srungavarapukota inscriptions of Anantavarman were issued from Devapura and Pishtapura respectively. In Siripuram inscription, his grandfather Gunavarman is described as the lord of Devapura. The city was presumably the capital of a region called Devarashtra (within Kalinga), which Anantavarman inherited from his ancestors. Devarashtra is identified as the present-day Yelamanchili

taluka A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative ...

. According to the

Allahabad Pillar The Allahabad Pillar is a ''stambha'', containing one of the pillar edicts of Ashoka, erected by Ashoka, emperor of the Maurya dynasty, who reigned in the 3rd century BCE. While it is one of the few extant pillars that carry Ashokan edicts, it ...

inscription, the

emperor

Samudragupta Samudragupta (Gupta script: ''Sa-mu-dra-gu-pta'', ( 335–375 CE) was the second emperor of the Gupta Empire of ancient India. A military genius and a patron of arts, he is regarded among the greatest rulers in Indian history. As a son of th ...

defeated the kings of Devarashtra and Pishtapura during his southern invasion. It appears that Gunavarman became a sovereign of Devarashtra after the decline of the Gupta rule in the region.

Religion

Unlike the

Vaishnavite Vaishnavism () ), also called Vishnuism, is one of the major Hindu denominations, Hindu traditions, that considers Vishnu as the sole Para Brahman, supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, ''Mahavishnu''. It is one of the majo ...

Matharas, Anantavarman was a

Shaivite Shaivism (, , ) is one of the major Hindu traditions, which worships Shiva as the supreme being. It is the second-largest Hindu sect after Vaishnavism, constituting about 385 million Hindus, found widely across South Asia (predominantly in ...

. His inscriptions describe him as ''parama-maheshvara'' (devotee of Shiva).

Inscriptions

The following copper-plate inscriptions of the Vasishtha kings are known: All the records are in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

language, written in a southern variety of the

Brahmi script Brahmi ( ; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system from ancient India. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as ...

Genealogy

Territory

Religion

Inscriptions

References

Bibliography

External links