Coorg Inscriptions - Gangas

The earliest of the inscriptions in Coorg show that this country formed part of the territory of the Gangas, a line of kings who ruled over Mysore from about the 2nd to the 11th century. Their kingdom was called Gangavadi, and their capital, at first Kuvalala or Kovalala (Kolar), was removed in the 3rd century to Talakad on the Kaveri, in the south-east of the Mysore District. The dynasty was founded by two Jain princes of the Ikshvaku (Solar) race, who came from the North, and were aided by the Jain acharya Simhanandi whom they met at Perur, still distinguished as Ganga-Perur (in the Kadapa District).

By name, the Gangas seem to be connected with the Gangaridae or tribes of the Ganges valley who, according to Greek and Roman accounts of the times of Alexander the Great and Seleucus Nicator, were subjects of Chandra-Gupta, the founder of the Maurya dynasty of Pataliputra (now Patna on the Ganges). Jain traditions represent him as ending his life at Sravana-Belgola in Mysore. The Gangaridae are mentioned by Ptolemy, and the Latin authors Virgil, Valerius Flaccus, and Curtius also make reference to them. Pliny writes of the Gangaridae Calingae or Gangas of Kalinga (Orissa and neighbouring parts), where there was an important line of Ganga kings in the 7th and 8th centuries, and where Ganga kings ruled down to as late as the 16th century. But the Gangas of Mysore were the original line, and the Gangadikaras, who still form the largest section of the agricultural population of Mysore, represent their former subjects, this name being a contraction from Gangavadikara.

Putting together the discovery of various coincident items, the following appears to have been the state of affairs. The Ganga king Avinita (whose mother was a Kadamba princess, the sister of Krishnavarmma) married the Punnad Raja's daughter, and had by her his son Durvvinita. This son he set aside (from the succession) in favour of another son (no doubt born of a different mother), and the latter obtained the Kongani (or Ganga) crown from (or with the support of) the Pallava and Rashtrakuta kings. Nevertheless, Lakshmi (the goddess of sovereignty) came to Durvvinita of her own accord, and he on his part entered into alliance with the Chalukya prince, giving him his daughter in marriage. The son born of this union was Jayasimha-Vallabha. Durvvinita next seized Kaduvetti (the Pallava king) on the field of battle and placed Jayasimha-Vallabha on his hereditary throne. And he in his turn made good the Chalukya supremacy for the time being by defeating the Rashtrakuta, the son of Krishna, but was eventually, it appears, slain in an encounter with Trilochana-Pallava.

Source: Coorg Inscriptions, Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. I by Lewis Rice