Hāldipūr plates, time of Gopāladeva

Editors: Emmanuel Francis, Samana Gururaja.

Identifier: DHARMA_INSKarnataka20001.

Summary: Donation of a half-share (samabhāga) of the village of Kāsaṃpaḷḷi, along with taxes house-site and taxes, by Gopāladeva to Siṃgitale-paṇyāra, a Brahmin of the Hāritagotra.

Languages: Kannada, Sanskrit.

Repository: Karnataka Inscriptions (tfb-karnataka-epigraphy).

Version: (3f89275), last modified (3f89275).

Edition

⟨Page 1r⟩

@ svasti

⟨Page 1v⟩ ⟨1v1=⟩ vikramāditya-satyāśraya-śrī-pṛth¿u?⟨i⟩vī-vallabha-palla⟨1v2=2⟩va-rāja-gopāla-devasya kaikeya-vaṃśodbhavoddhata-pradhāna-pu⟨1v3=3⟩ruṣasya Aneka-guṇa-gaṇālaṃk¿ra?⟨ṛ⟩ta-prāsevya-lakṣmī-nivā⟨1v4=4⟩sa-vakṣa-sthalasya Aneka-raṇa-vipula-śatru-jana-prabhañjana-ka⟨1v5=5⟩r¿i?⟨ī⟩-karākāra-bāhu-dvayasya caṇḍa-mah¿a?⟨ā⟩sena-putrasya payve⟨Page 2r⟩⟨2r1=6⟩gundu-purēśvarasya pallava-rājena dattaḥ

mantri-purōhita-śrī-kara⟨2r2=7⟩ṇamuṃ sāsirvvaruṃ Aṟunūrvvaruṃ sahitaṃ tamma prasāda-paran a⟨2r3=8⟩pponge ¿Ā?⟨ha⟩ri¿d?⟨t⟩a-gōtrajange siṃgitale-paṇyārange kāsaṃpa⟨2r4=9⟩ḷḷiyā sama-bhāgamāN candra-sūryyar uḷḷappinaṃ sarvva-viruddha-ra⟨2r5=10⟩hitaṃ gōpāladeva⟨r⟩ koṭṭaR

bhuktānubhuktaṃ salutt’ iḻdudu

⟨Page 2v⟩ ⟨2v1=11⟩ mane-dāṇamuṃ palage-gaṇṭaṃ modal-āge kaḻaniyuṃ

  • vaḍagaṇṇā sīme ⟨2v2=12⟩ peramaḻe
  • paḍuvaṇṇā sīme tanvaḷḷi gārapāḻi
  • teṅkaṇṇā sīme ⟨2v3=13⟩ neydalgeṟeyā Ēri
  • mūḍaṇṇā sīme Iḍeveṭṭadā vaḍaga⟨2v4=14⟩ṇṇā niriraga @

koḷaguppe peḻjavasi Ardhaṃ kānasoppin ardhaṃ ⟨2v5=15⟩ vāral ardhaṃ karsa-piṇḍaṃ nūṟ-irppatt-e¿nt?⟨ṇṭ⟩u koṃbe gāroḍaṃ pa⟨Page 3r⟩⟨3r1=16⟩ḍeya¡ṃm!⟨ṃ⟩ eṇṭu mūḍe jamali ondu @

Idu gōp¿a?⟨ā⟩la-dēvarā da⟨3r2=17⟩tti

Itaḥ-param idān aḻivoR Ī Aṟu-nūṟu bhūmi Agra⟨3r3=18⟩h¿a?⟨ā⟩ramuṃ vāraṇāsiyumān aḻidorā lōkakke salvāR

⟨Page 3v⟩

Apparatus

⟨6⟩ pallava-rājena dattaḥ ⬦ pallava-rāj¿ena?⟨asya⟩ datt¿a?⟨i⟩ḥ EI • ...

Translation by Emmanuel Francis and Samana Gururaja

(1) Prosperity!

(1–6) Donation by the Pallava king (pallava-rājena dattaḥ), [that is], / for the sake of1 Gopāladeva, the sun of valiance (vikramāditya), the refuge of truth (satyāśraya), the favourite of the fortune and of the earth (śrī-pṛthivī), the Pallava king (pallava-rāja),2 ...

(6–10) Along with his minister, his chaplain, his accountant, the one-thousand, and the six-hundred, Gopāladeva gave, free from all opposition, a half-share [of the village] of Kāsaṃpaḷḷi to ...

(10) ...

(11–14) [The donation consists in the] gift of a house-site and a rice-field, [the boundaries of which are as follows]:

  • the northern boundary ...;
  • the western boundary ...;
  • the southern boundary ...;
  • the western boundary ....

(14–16) [The donation further consists in] ...

(16–17) This is a donation of Gopāladeva.

(17–18) He who destroys this will enter the world of those who destroy this agrahāra comprising six hundred lands as well as Benares.

Translation into French by Brocquet 1997

(1) Salut !

(1–6) Donation de Gopāladeva, roi des Pallava, soleils de bravoure et refuges de la vérité qui sont les favoris de la Fortune et de la Terre, noble et important personnage issu de la lignée de Kaikeya, qu’illustre le cortège de ses nombreuses vertus, qui se montre digne qu’on l’honore, sur la poitrine duquel repose la Fortune, et dont les deux bras, semblables à des trompes d’éléphant, ont dans plus d’un combat anéanti de puissants ennemis : le fils de Caṇḍamahāsena, le seigneur de la cité Payvegundu, le roi des Pallava.

Translation by Lakshminarayan Rao [1956] 1931–1932

[original translation converted to DHARMA transliteration scheme]

(1–6) Hail! This is the gift of the Pallava chief Gopāladeva alias Vikramāditya-Satyāśraya, who was the favourite of Fortune and Earth, the chief among the exalted personages born of the Kaikeya family, who was adorned with a multitude of virtues and whose breast was the abode of the [goddess] Lakṣmī, who had a pair of arms which resembled the elephant’s trunk in shape and which had destroyed the hosts of enemies in several battles, who was the son of Caṇḍamahāsena and the lord of the city of Payvegundu.

(6–10) Gopāladeva, attended by his minister, the purohita (family priest), the śrīkaraṇa (officer of Accounts), the one-thousand [mahājanas] and the six-hundred [nāḍu] granted, free from all opposition, to Siṃgitale-Paṇyāra of the Hārita-gotra who had earned his [Gopāladeva’s] favour the equal share (i.e., half) of the village Kāsampaḷḷi [to be enjoyed] as long as the sun and the moon exist. [This estate] was in [his] continued enjoyment.

(11–14) [The portion granted was as follows:] The house site and the rice-fields beginning from [the place called?] Palage-gaṇṭa. The northern boundary [of this was] the [village] Peramaḻe, the western boundary [consisted of the villages] Taṇvaḷḷi and Gārapāḻi, the southern boundary [was] the embankment of the [tank called] Neydalgeṟe and the eastern boundary [was] the lake on the north of [the hill called] Iḍevaṭṭa.

(14–16) [Besides this] he was granted one half of the incomes koḷaguppe3 and peḻjavasi, one-half of kāna-soppu and one-half of vāral and a lump sum of one hundred and twenty eight karsa (kārshāpaṇa?) …4 and a pair of eight mūḍes.

(16–18) This was the gift of Gopāladeva. He who destroys this will enter the world of those who destroy this agrahāra comprising six hundred lands and Benares.

Commentary

On the taxes or incomes donated, see Lakshminarayan Rao [1956] 1931–1932, p. 176: “The significance of certain incomes, the halves of which were granted to the donee, viz., koḷaguppe, peḻjavasi, kānasoppu and vāral is not quite clear. I may suggest, however that koḷaguppe may denote a heap (kuppe) made up of the share due to the state on every koḷa (a measure of capacity) of the produce. Javasi may mean a tax in kind on javasa (Skt. yavasa) meaning meadow grass; peḻjavasi would then be a tax levied on big (meadows of) straw. Kāna or kān means forest and soppu means foliage in Kanarese. Kānasoppu may therefore be a tax on the foliage of the forest used by the cultivators for manure and other purposes. In Tamil vāral means spoil [fn. 2: I am indebted for this suggestion to Rao Bahadur R. Narasimhachar.]; and it is not unlikely that it had the same connotation in Kanarese. The words karsa-piṇḍam [fn. 3: Since karsa-piṇḍam is specified as 128 it appears to me that it denotes the gift of a lump sum (piṇḍa). If 80, karsa may be taken to be the tadbhava of the Sanskrit word karṣa (kārṣāpaṇa). Karsapiṇḍam would then mean the kārṣāpaṇas paid in a lump unlike the taxes noted above, of which the donee was to receive a half. This explanation seems to gain strength by the use of a somewhat similar expression in an inscription, of the 11th year of the Cāḷukya king Pratāpacakravarti Jagadekamalla II (No. 503 of the Madras Epigraphical Colleotion for 1915); the passage runs as: tanna tohiya manneyavaṃ kāṇikey-aya-dāya sarvv-āya-śuddhi varṣaṃ-prati hanneraḍu gadyāṇama piṇḍ-ādānvāgi oḍambaṭṭu dhārā-pūrvvakaṃ māḍi koṭṭa. Here the twelve gadyāṇas (gold coin) were granted as a lump sum] and koṃbe-gāroḍam are obscure and do not occur in any of the Kanarese inscriptions so far published.”

Bibliography

Reported in Chandra 1957 (ARIE/1956-1957/A/1956-1957/72).

Edited in Lakshminarayan Rao [1956] 1931–1932, with facsimiles (EI 21.29) and corrigenda (EI 21, p. vii); re-edited in Subrahmanian 1966; text and summary in Mahalingam 1988 (IP 258); text and French translation in Brocquet 1997 (B 72).

Edited and translated here by Emmanuel Francis & Samana Gururaja (2024), based on Lakshminarayan Rao [1956] 1931–1932 and the published visual documentation therein.

Primary

[EI] Lakshminarayan Rao, N. [1956] 1931–1932. “Haldipur plates of the Pallava chief Gopaladeva.” EI 21, pp. 173–179. Plate unnumbered (pasted between pp. 178 and 179).

[TNS] Subrahmanian, T.N. 1966. Pallavar ceppēṭukaḷ muppatu / Thirty Pallava Copper-Plates (Prior to 1000 A.D.) Madras: Tamil Varalatru Kazhagam. Pages 397–402.

[IP] Mahalingam, T. V. 1988. Inscriptions of the Pallavas. New Delhi; Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research; Agam Prakashan. Item 258, pages 636–638.

[B] Brocquet, Sylvain. 1997. “Les inscriptions sanskrites des Pallava : poésie, rituel, idéologie.” Thèse de doctorat, Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. Paris. Pages 784–785, item 72.

Secondary

Chandra, B.C. 1957. Annual report on Indian epigraphy for 1956-57. New Delhi: Manager of Publications (Department of Archaeology). Page 35, appendixes A/1956-1957, item 72.

Notes

  1. 1. These alternative translations reflect the uncertainty about the necessity to emend the original text like Lakshminarayan Rao [1956] 1931–1932 does. The emended version would mean that Gopāladeva is described as a Pallava king. The unamended version would mean that Gopāladava is a vassal of the Pallava king, who sanctions a gift sollicited by Gopāladeva.
  2. 2. The first three epithets are traditional epithets of the Cāḷukya kings. They might qualify Gopāladeva (Lakshminarayan Rao [1956] 1931–1932) or pallavarāja (Brocquet 1997). As for pallavarāja, it is not clear if it describes Gopāladeva as belonging to the Pallava lineage or if it is the appropriation by a vassal of the dynastic title of his overlord. It is not clear either if Pallava refers here to the Pallavas of Kāñcipuram or to the Noḷamba-Pallavas.
  3. 3. For the explanation of these terms see above p. 176.
  4. 4. The meaning of kombe gāroḍam is not clear.