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Rejuvenating false histories:
Cālukyarāja
-Ayya
ṇavaṁśacarita
-
kāvya
, published in 1966 and 2005
Shreenand L. Bapat
(Curator In-charge, BORI, Pune 411004)
However skillfully may a spurious text be composed, its reality will not remain unexposed in the modern scientific age. Sanskrit scholars should, thus, refrain from such nasty activities and employ their scholarship into the right work.
V. V. Mirashi1
This paper deals with a spurious historical kāvya. Its reality is necessitated to be
reasserted due to the publication of its second edition. The paper is divided into three sections, viz. 1: the 1966 edition,2 2: the 2005 edition, and 3: conclusion.
1.1: It was in 1966 that rī Cālukyarāja-Ayyaṇavaṁ acaritam kāvyam (sic.)
containing 17 cantos was published by the Akhila Bharatiya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, Delhi.3
Its publication was financed by Sardar Sabajirao alias Appasaheb Patil Chalukya , BA,
MRAS, IAS (Retd.), residing at Kalyani Kothi, 20, Radhaganj, Devas (Madhya Pradesh). The Sanskrit kāvya was reportedly edited using two manuscripts and it was translated
into Hindi by Vishwanath Shastri Bharadvaj of Varanasi.4 It was reportedly composed in
the year 1815 CE by yāmabhaṭṭa Bhāradvāja of Varanasi, an ancestor of the editor and
priest of the Patil Chalukya family. The kāvya attempts to establish the Patil Chalukyas
as descendants of Cālukya ruler Ayyaṇa (II) of Kalyaṇī and narrates their story till the
18th century CE. The Editor does not forget to mention that the original manuscripts of the kāvya were reduced to dust due to termite infestation.5
1.2: The said book is dedicated to Smt. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India and President of the Akhila Bharatiya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth. Its copies were presented to various important persons including Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, the then President of India. The book is divided into introductory matter, Sanskrit text,
kavipra asti, Hindi translation and three appendices enumerating sūkti-s from the kāvya, index of names and a 62-generation-long genealogy of Sardar Chalukya. It also includes the photographs of: (1) Smt. Indira Gandhi, (2) the occasion on which a copy of the book was presented to Dr. Radhakrishnan on October 02, 1966 (presumably printed and
pasted in the copies in hand after the said date), (3) Cālukya-kuladīpaka Sabajirao alias
1 Conclusive remark of the Marathi article on the Ayyaṇavaṁ acarita kāvya (Saṁ odhana-muktāvalī, Vol.
7, p. 189), cited from an earlier article on the Yajñaphala (Saṁ odhana-muktāvalī, Vol. 2, p. 63).
2 The present author was initiated in this matter by G. B. Mehendale s writing ( rī Rājā ivachatrapatī
published in 1999, Vol. 1, part 2, book 1, pp. 531-561). Most of the information given in the sections 1.1 to 1.5 of this paper is cited from his work. However, Mehendale does not seem to have got the opportunity to
see the copy of the kāvya which is mentioned below and used for this paper.
3 While the text is in Sanskrit, the other matter of the book is in Hindi. A number of copies of the book are
available in the Library of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune. The most remarkable of them is the one donated to the Library on August 10, 1984 by Devisingh Chauhan, which was evidently
presented to him by A. P. Chalukya, Kalyani Kothi, Dewas, M.P. on January 24, 1Ś73. This copy bears the BORI Library s accession number 45170 of September 03, 1Ś84. The year of publication on the title page of this copy is pasted on the original matter, and it reads (1)ś90 vīra vikrame, which should match
the year 1834 CE! Perhaps this was actually meant to be the aka year 18Ś0 which corresponds 1Ś68 CE.
4One of the manuscripts was reportedly received by the Editor from the Sardar, while he found out the
other one from his own collection (Bhūmikā (Introduction) by Vishwanath Shastri Bharadvaj, pp. 5-7).
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Appajirao Chalukya sitting in the attire of a Sardar, (4) the same Sardar Chalukya on the
background of the fort of Kalyani, (5) ancient paintings of the Sardar s ancestors, and
(6) various locations from the fort of Kalyani. Interestingly, the editor reports in his
Bhūmikā that both the original manuscripts were thrown by him into the Ganga due to heavy termite-infestation, and hence the text was brought out only from the press-copy prepared by the editor and possessed by the Sardar.
1.3: Attention of V. V. Mirashi was drawn to the book by a letter written to him in
June 1973 by Devisingh Chauhan, a scholar of ancient and medieval Indian history,6 who
had already written an article on the said kāvya (Bhāratīya Itihāsa āṇi Saṁskṛti, Vol. 37,
April 1973, pp. 19-30).7 Mirashi communicated to him his doubts about its genuineness
and also wrote an article maintaining that such a kāvya could not have been composed before the various literary and archaeological sources of Indian history were brought to
light by researchers of the 19th and 20th centuries. He, thus, labelled the said kāvya as
spurious (Bhāratīya Itihāsa āṇi Saṁskṛti, Vol. 40, January 1974, pp. 48-60, also Journal
of Indian History, Vol. 52, pp. 217 ff.).
1.4: As mentioned earlier, G. B. Mehendale has dealt with this issue exhaustively in Eka Banāvaṭa Aitihāsika Kāvya which stands as the 15th Appendix to his work rī
Rājā ivachatrapatī published in 1999 (Vol. 1, part 2, book 1, pp. 531-561), and has
thrown fresh light on various aspects of the issue.8 He has enumerated the objections on
the authenticity of the kāvya as follows:
(1) Dates of about a hundred historical events from aka 143 to aka 1713 have been
given in the kāvya, a fact that does not corroborate with the level of historical knowledge
that the Indians (or for that matter even outsiders)9 possessed in 1815 CE.
(2) Such a long history of no other dynasty or house is known.
(3) Various modern ideas and elements of articulation appear in the text; for example, the kāvya mentions that Ayyaṇa had researched in astronomy and propounded his discoveries in a text called Viraha-abhiharā . This stands against the ancient Indian practice to refrain from identifying any discovery with the name of its investigator. (4) Information of historical facts that have come to light decades after the composition
of the kāvya appears in the same.
Mehendale has alleged that Vishwanath Shastri Bharadvaj himself must have
fabricated the kāvya at the instance of the Sardar in order to establish him in the lineage
of the Cālukyas, and that a great amount of paraphernalia in the form of photographs,
etc. has been deliberately created around its text with the same objective in mind.10
1.5: The discussion on the use of kerosene as mentioned in the said kāvya,
however, went on for a year between Chauhan and Mirashi. Responding to Chauhan s
article in support of its knowledge (Bhāratīya Itihāsa āṇi Saṁskṛti, Vol. 42, October
6 Chauhan was a rare combination of an activist and a scholar. He was a freedom-fighter, later on a
member of local and state legislative bodies and a minister in the Government of Maharashtra. He was a member of the BORI, the Bharat Itihas Samshodhak Mandal and many other scholarly bodies. His collection of books has been received and held by the BORI library.
7 Chauhan s articles could not be referred to due to unavailability of the volumes of the said journal.
10 It may also be pointed out that an extraordinarily thick paper is used for printing the book. Excluding its
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1974, pp. 15-27), Mirashi cautioned Chauhan through a personal letter written on
January 16, 1975.11 Fictitiousness of ancient Indian kerosene was finally brought out by
Mirashi in print (Bhāratīya Itihāsa āṇi Saṁskṛti, Vol. 43, April 1975, pp. 3-10).
1.6: As is evident from the letter dated July 27, 1975, written to Devisingh Chauhan, Sardar Chalukya seems to have kept on persuading Chauhan and perhaps also others to pay attention to it.12 The said letter is worth citing in full in order to have the
sense of the Sardar s anxiety and eagerness. It reads:
Dt. 27–7–75 My dear Devisinghji,
It is ages that I did not hear from you. I learnt that you are now a Chairman, Sugar Factory, and as such, must be very busy. However you
can’t neglect your literary pursuit. That is also, important. I do try to contact you, nay make it a point to meet you there, but unfortunately I am greatly disappointed so far. I don’t know whether your address is changed as I did not get a reply to my letters so far and as such I am sending this c/o our common friend Dr. V. G. Khobrekar,13 who too has the same complain. I hope you will now shall (sic.) attend to this letter and contact me at Hotel Amir, Poona – Near Railway Station, 15, Connaught Road, Phone 27371; as I will be there from 1st to 6th August 75, and then proceed to Kolhapur. My address at Kolhapur is: New Palace (Phone: 20), Kolhapur and do expect a letter from you as you have to reply a nasty attack on you, as it seems to be absurd and we have sufficient reliable authorities to substantiate your point of view and genuineness of our original documents referred (sic.) by Foreign Authorities. The maliced criticism must be set at rest once for all, as it is baseless and based on hatred, naturally when the efforts of that group for more than two centuries are going to be smashed and thrown out to their woe and, a great failure in writing true History. You shall be entirely armed with weighty arguments, loaded with very importan[t] historical evidence, recently unearthed and published in Royal Asiatic Society, London, Magazines & Bulletins etc. along with our old Mss. and a number of mistakes in reading, translating, typing and printing has occurred, and were not noticed and timely corrected but the facts are now all collobrated [?] and found to be absolutely correct, be assured and hence the request. More when we meet.
January 22, 1975. It was found in the Devisingh Chauhan Collection at the BORI Library. From Mirashi s
article published in the next issue of the journal, it is learnt that Chauhan had requested the Editors to delete the kerosene-related matter from his article. But the same was published by oversight.
12 This handwritten letter sent from Kalyani Kothi, Radha Ganj, Dewas, MP , bears the heading Sardar
A. Patil Chalukey, IAS (Retd.), MRAS in purple colour. It holds the emblem printed in red ink of the Sardar showing an eagle over a circle having: (1) two scimitars on the sides, (2) image of two bastions and
a gate of a fort with a flag mounted, (3) a legend Cālukya Kalyāṇī in Devanāgarī, Kannaḍa and Roman
scripts, and (4) all this encircled by an eagle holding with its feet a serpent! The letter is carefully pasted by Chauhan between the 2nd and the 3rd page of his copy of the book. Chauhan seems to have seriously
studied the kāvya, as is evident from the other insertions and marginal notes he has made in the said copy.
13 V. G. Khobarekar was a renowned scholar of medieval documents who held the post of Director of
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1.7: However, Chauhan and other scholars do not seem to have paid heed to this
persuasion.14 Thereafter the kāvya under reference seems to have sunk into oblivion for
about three decades.
2.1: About a decade ago a doctoral dissertation on the said kāvya, that claimed to have studied and edited it using three manuscripts, was submitted to the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, by Dinesh Chandra Awasthi under the guidance of Kailas Pati Tripathi. The successful dissertation was published in 2005 under ISBN 81-89482-05-X by Akash Publishers and Distributers, E-10/663, Uttaranchal Colony, Loni Border,
Loni, Gaziabad 201102, perhaps on behalf of Sahitya Sansthan, Loni, Gaziabad.15 It is
interesting to note that Awasthi s name has been printed as Dinesh Kumar Awasthi on
the spine and first page of the jacket and spine and the first page the hard cover of the book. However, the name on the first page of the jacket seems to have been corrected as
…Chandra… with the help of red and white screen-printing.16
2.2: The new book does not recognize the earlier edition of the kāvya. It claims to
have been brought out critically with the use of three manuscripts named ka , kha and
ga . Details of the manuscripts used for editing the kāvya have not been given
anywhere in the book.17
2.3: The doctoral researcher neither has any right to plead innocent, nor should he avail any benefit of doubt. He seems to have done nothing new except applying unscrupulously his imagination:
(1) to rearrange the kāvya in 15 cantos dropping many verses and cantos,
(2) to drop the name and the date of its author, and
(3) to bring out variant readings originating from the so-called three manuscripts.
With the first two measures Awasthi has effectively detached from the kāvya:
yāmabhaṭṭa Bhāradvāja, the original author , Sardar Patil-Chalukya,18 the repositor
and the sponsor, and Vishwanath Shastri Bharadvaj the editor .
A comparative chart of the 1966 edition and the 2005 edition is given below:
Canto No. No. of verses in
14 Mirashi and Mehendale have also informed about the spurious coins and documents from the collection
of Sabajirao Patil. This enhances the doubts about the authenticity of the kāvya.
15 This work is entirely in Sanskrit. Its copy was presented by the publisher to the Bhandarkar O. R.
Institute Library in 2007-2008. Its accession number is 99863 of February 29, 2008.
16 Such lapses seem to be a common feature found in the publication of counterfeit works. See for
examples the first edition of this kāvya itself, or the various publications of Jivaram Kalidas Shastri, Gondal. (See my paper in Vol. 2 of this series, pp. 29-34 and sources mentioned in the same.)
17 The present author made a written query sending a letter by speed-post to Awasthi regarding provenance
and details of the said manuscripts of the kāvya. The samewas delivered to him on January 15, 2014. The envelope concerned also contained a self-addressed envelope bearing postal stamps worth Rs. 35/- affixed in order to save him from postal expenses. Awasthi has not cared to reply the same till date. The publishers
telephonically expressed inability to provide any details about the kāvya or its editor (Ph.: 0120-2603892).
18 The details of the Maratha history that appear in the 1966 edition in cantos 16 and 17 and the concluding
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A gross and unscrupulous rearrangement of the contents is conspicuously evident in the 13th and the 15th cantos of the 2005 edition. A comparative chart of these two cantos from the 1966 edition and the 2005 edition stands as follows:
Canto 13:
2.4 The 2005 edition of the kāvya abruptly concludes after the 42nd verse of the
15th canto with a colophon dealing with that canto only. It is interesting to note that all
the three manuscripts availed by this editor conclude in one and the same fashion. The
verses 26 to 42 of this edition speak for installation of an icon of Viṣṇu in Vijayānagara
at the hands of one Kammoji (in aka 1590) and a copperplate inscription recording this
event. This portion seems to be imaginary and has no match in the 1966 edition.19
2.5: Along with the unscrupulous rearrangement of portions of the kāvya in the second edition, the present author was able to find out at least 225 verses wherein the
original readings have been altered by Awasthi. An example of such unscrupulous
19 This should in fact be seen as next to impossible, since in aka 15Ś0 (i.e. 1668 CE), Vijaynagar was a
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replacement of readings may be cited hereś राता कतीयारदेव ववनयतुकदेवज । कथयामासतु्ुुकं
तपराजयकारणम ्॥ (12.25 of the 1966 edition) has been altered in 2005 with the reading
ववनय कवियारच तुकदेवसुत पुन ।... (12.25 of the 2005 edition) owing its origin supposedly to the manuscript ka ! The unison of the duel number of the subject and the verb in the earlier reading is not taken care of in the latter.
2.6: Further, imitating the paraphernalia of the 1966 edition of the work, the researcher has not forgotten to include in his book a message dated March 04, 2005 received from S. M. Khan, Press Secretary to the then President of India, congratulating him. A photograph of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the then President, seems to have been inserted carefully between the heading matter and the actual message.
2.7: An enumeration of the subject matter of the said kāvya and its cultural study has been attempted in two chapters on the strength of the internal evidence available therein. It is also noteworthy that in spite of his claim of a cultural study of the kāvya,
Awasthi s bibliography remains limited to the following twelve works of Sanskrit
poetics: the kāvya itself, Kāvyaprakā a, Kāvyālaṅkārasūtra (mentioned twice), Kāvyā
-laṅkāra, Vāgbhaṭālaṅkāra, Hemacandrālaṅkāra, Pratāparudraya obhūṣaṇa of Vidyā
-nātha, Kāvyādar a, Kāvyamīmāṁsā, Sāhityadarpaṇa, Rasagaṅgādhara and Amarako a. Awasthi provides only the titles of the texts and no other details.
2.8: Though some necessary elements are missing from the book, it provides as many as eight enumerative appendices as follows: (a) Names of various ancient and
medieval kingdoms appearing in the kāvya , (b) Description of places, (c) Chronology
of historical events,20 (d) Women in the kāvya , (e) Social consideration, (f) Men
who were namesakes, (g) Muslims in the kāvya , and (h) Unjust actions of the Muslims.
2.9: The ulterior motive behind the composition of the kāvya and its first edition is
clear. However, the motive behind the work of the second scholar seems to be nothing more than somehow securing the doctoral degree and thereby reputation and position.
3: Neither of the editions of the Cālukyarāja-Ayyaṇa-vaṁ acarita-kāvya holds
any water as a source of history since the kāvya itself is a proven counterfeit. The whole
scholarly endeavour of Bharadvaj and Awasthi stands to be a blasphemy in research and publication, to say the least. It is hoped that it shall prove to be the solitary instance of its kind.
Bibliography
Awasthi, Dinesh Chandra (2005) Cālukyarāja-Ayyaṇavaṁ acarita-kāvyam. Loni, Gaziabad: Sahitya Sansthan (Akash Publishers and Distributers), pp. 192.
Bharadvaj, Vishvanath Shastri (1966) rī Cālukyarāja-Ayyaṇavaṁ acaritam Kāvyam. Delhi: Akhila Bhāratīya Saṁskṛtavidyāpīṭham, pp. 24 (Introduction, etc.) + 155 (text) + 104 (translation) + 2 (proverbs) + 18 (Index) + unnumbered 12 (genealogy) + 1 (advertisement of the publisher) + 9 plates.
Mehendale, G. B. (author and publisher) (1999) rī Rājā ivachatrapatī (Marathi), Vol. 1, part 2, book 1, Pune, pp. 15 + 1352.
Mirashi, V. V. (1976) Ayyaṇavaṁ acarita Eka banāvaṭa Saṁskṛta aitihāsika kāvya (Marathi),
Saṁ odhana-muktāvali, Vol. 7, Nagpur: Vidarbha Sanshodhan Mandal, pp. 174-189.
_________ (1Ś76) Ayyaṇavaṁ acaritātīla ghāsaleṭa telācā kālpanika itihāsa (Marathi),
Saṁ odhana-muktāvali, Vol. 7, Nagpur: Vidarbha Sanshodhan Mandal, pp. 190-198.
