Nākappaṭṭiṉam, bronze label

Editor: Emmanuel Francis.

Identifier: DHARMA_INSTamilNadu00351.

Summary: Label with donor’s name on a Buddhist bronze.

Hand description:

Language: Tamil.

Repository: Tamil Nadu (varia) (tfa-tamilnadu-epigraphy).

Version: (12f3008), last modified (53d0085).

Edition

⟨1⟩ Umaiyar (tiruv)āli-y-āḻvār nāyakar

Apparatus

⟨1⟩ (tiruv)āli-y-āḻvār ⬦ tiruvāliyāḻvār R3.

Translation by Ramachandran 1992

(1) The Nāyakar (i.e., Lord Buddha) of (i.e., set up or donated by) Umaiyar, a devotee hailing from Tiruvāli.

Translation by Emmanuel Francis

(1) The Lord [of] Umaiyar Tiruvāli Āḻvār.

Commentary

Ramachandran 1992 comments thus: “Tiruvāli also called Tiruvāli-Tirunakari is the name of a village near Cīrkaḻi in the Tanjore district where the Śaiva Saint Campantar and the Vaiṣṇava Āḻvār Tirumaṅkai met. According to the Divyasūricarita and Vaiṣṇava literature and tradition, Tirumaṅkai Āḻvār of the 8th century A.D. is said to have robbed one of the Buddhist vihāras of Nākappaṭṭiṉam of a golden image of the Buddha and to have utilized the gold for constructing the prākāra walls of the Vaiṣṇava shrine of Raṅganātha at Śrīraṅkam.”

Bibliography

Edited, with a facsimile in Ramachandran 1954, Ramachandran 1965, Ramachandran 1992 (p. 34, no. 5 and pl. XXVI, no. 51), Ramachandran 1992 (p. 43 and pl. V, no. 51).

Edited and translated here by Emmanuel Francis (2024), based on Ramachandran 1992 and the facsimile therein.

Primary

[R1] Ramachandran, T. N. 1954. The Nāgapaṭṭiṇam and other Buddhist bronzes in the Chennai Museum. Madras: Government of Madras.

[R2] Ramachandran, T. N. 1965. The Nāgapaṭṭiṇam and other Buddhist bronzes in the Chennai Museum. Reprint. Madras: Government of Madras.

[R3] Ramachandran, T. N. 1992. The Nāgapaṭṭiṇam and other Buddhist bronzes in the Chennai Museum. Reprint. Madras: The Director of Museums.

[R4] Ramachandran, T. N. 2005. The Nāgapaṭṭiṇam and other Buddhist bronzes in the Chennai Museum. Revised edition. Chennai: Government of Tamilnadu.