Jayachandra

Jayachandra was a son of the Gahadavala king Vijayachandra. According to a Kamauli inscription, he was crowned king on 21 June 1170 CE.[1] Jayachandra inherited his grandfather Govindachandra's royal titles:[1] Ashva-pati Nara-pati Gaja-pati Rajatrayadhipati ("leader of three forces: the cavalry, the infantry and the elephant corps"[2]) and Vividha-vidya-vichara-vachaspati ("patron of different branches of learning"[3]).

Jayachandra's inscriptions praise him using the conventional grandiloquent terms, but do not mention any concrete achievement of the king. The records of his neighbouring Hindu kings (Paramara, Chahamana, Chandela and Kalachuri) do not mention any conflict with him either.[4] The Sena king Lakshmana Sena is believed to have invaded the Gahadavala territory, but this invasion may have taken place after Jayachandra's death.[5]

Jayachandra is a prominent character in the historically unreliable fictional text Prithviraj Raso. According to the text, Jayachandra ("Jaichand") was a cousin of the Chahamana king Prithviraja III ("Prithviraj Chauhan"). Their mothers were sisters born to the Tomara king of Delhi. This claim is directly contradicted by the more reliable contemporary text Prithviraja Vijaya, according to which Prithviraj's mother had nothing to do with the Tomaras.[13]

The text states that Jaichand's wife was a daughter of king Mukunda-deva, the Somavanshi king of Kataka. Jaichand's father Vijayachandra had defeated Mukunda-deva, who concluded a peace treaty by marrying his daughter to prince Jaichand. Samyukta was the issue of this marriage. This narrative is historically inaccurate: the Somavanshi dynasty did not have any king named Mukunda-deva. Moreover, the Somavanshis had already been displaced by the Gangas before Vijayachandra's ascension.[14]

The text also talks of a conflict between Jaichand and Prithviraj. Neither Chahamana nor Gahadavala inscriptions mention any such conflict. The text claims that Jaichand assisted the Chandela king Paramardi in a battle against Prithviraj. The Chandelas were defeated in this battle. The inscriptional evidence confirms that Prithviraj defeated Paramardi, but there is no evidence for a Gahadavala-Chandela alliance. That said, it is known that Paramardi's grandfather Madanavarman had friendly relations with the Gahadavalas. It is also possible that Gahadavalas may have supported the Chandelas, because the Chahamanas were a common rival of these two kingdoms.[4] This hypothesis notwithstanding, there is no reliable evidence to suggest that Jayachandra and Prithviraja were rivals.[8]

Prithviraj Raso further claims that Jaichand launched a digvijaya campaign (conquest in all directions). At the end of this campaign, he conducted a rajasuya ceremony to proclaim his supremacy.[15] However, none of the Gahadavala inscriptions mention such a ceremony by Jaichand. The contemporary literary work Rambha-Manjari, which presents Jaichand as a hero, does not mention this campaign either.[16]

According to the text, Jaichand also conducted a svayamvara (husband selection) ceremony for his daughter Samyukta. He did not invite Prithviraj to this ceremony, but Samyukta had fallen in love with Prithviraj, and decided to select him as her husband. Prithviraj came to the ceremony and eloped with the princess after a fight with Jaichand's men. This anecdote is not supported by any historical evidence either.[17]

It is possible that Jaichand and Prithviraj were political rivals, as indicated by their non-cooperation against the Ghurid invaders.[8] But the Prithviraj Raso goes on to claim that Jaichand not only refused to help Prithviraj against the Ghurids, but also formed an alliance with the invading Ghurid king Muhammad of Ghor. No historical evidence supports this claim.[18] Although the account in Prithviraj Raso is disputed by historians, the name "Jaichand" became synonymous with the word "traitor" in Indian folklore because of this historically unreliable legend.[19]

Several inscriptions from Jayachandra's reign have been discovered, most of them in and around Varanasi.[4] One of the inscriptions has been discovered at Bodh Gaya in present-day Bihar.[20]

The inscriptions from Jayachandra's reign include the following:[21]

Jayachandra's court poet Bhatta Kedar wrote a eulogy titled Jaichand Prakash on his life, but the work is now lost. Another lost eulogy on his life is the poet Madhukar's Jaya-Mayank-Jasha-Chandrika (c. 1183).[22]

According to the 1167 CE Kamauli inscription, as a prince, Jayachandra was initiated as a worshipper of Krishna by the Vaishnavite guru Praharaja-Sharman.[23] Nevertheless, after ascending the throne, Jayachandra assumed the dynasty's traditional title Parama-Maheshvara ("devotee of Shiva"). His Kamauli grant inscription states that he made a village grant and performed tulapurusha ceremony in the presence of the god Kṛittivāsa (an epithet of Shiva).[24][25]

An inscription discovered at Bodh Gaya suggests that Jayachandra also showed interest in Buddhism. This inscription begins with an invocation to Gautam Buddha, the Bodhisattavas, and one Shrimitra (Śrimītra). Shrimitra is named as a perceptor (diksha-guru) of Kashisha Jayachchandra, identified with the king Jayachandra. The inscription records the construction of a guha (cave monastery) at Jayapura.[20][24]