Texts

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This states that Ambalavaṉ Paḻuvūr-Nakkaṉ alias Vikramaśōḻa-Mārāyaṉ of Kuvaḷālam (Kolar) the Perundaram of Uttama-Chōḷadēva built of stone the Śrīvimāna of the temple of Vijayamaṅgalattu-Dēva at Periya Śrī-Vāṉavaṉmādēvi-chaturvēdimaṅgalam.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0332.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This records a gift of 96 sheep for burning a perpetual lamp with an uḻakku of ghee everyday in the temple, by Aparāyitaṉ Śeyyavāymaṇi wife of Ambalavaṉ Paḻuvūr-Nakkaṉ who built this stone temple. This is an inscription of Uttama-Chōḷa.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0333.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This records a similar gift of sheep by Śiṅgapaṉmaṉ Kañji-Akkaṉ another wife of Paruvūr-Nakkaṉ.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0334.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a bilingual record in Sanskrit and Tamil, stating that Ambalavaṉ Paḻuvūr-Nakkaṉ of Kavuḷālam (Kolar) who was a nobleman of the king’s council and who had obtained the title Vikramaśōḻa-Mahārājaṉ after the surname of his over-lord, built the temple of Vijayamaṅgalattu-Mahādēva with stone at Periya-Śrīvānavaṉmahādēvi-chaturvēdimaṅgalam a brahmadēya on the nothern bank of the river and made an endowment of the village Neḍuvāyil with its surrounding hamlets for offerings, worship and all other requirements of the temple after purchasing it tax-free from the assembly of the village. In the Sanskrit portion with which the inscription begins, the donor is said to have been a member of the fourth caste and a personification of all the good qualities, with whose valour the king was greatly pleased and conferred on him the title ‘Vikrama-Chōḷa-Mahārāja’. The inscription has been assigned to king Uttama-Chōḷa M.E.R. for 1929 (Part II, para 29).

The inscription from line 42 to 83 which is in continuation of the above is in smaller and also ornate style of writing and is faulty throughout. It purports to register an order issued in the 7th year of Rājarājadēva by the same donor (who is here called Rājarāja-Pallavaraiyaṉ) while he was camping at Śrī Vijayamaṅgalam, fixing in elaborate detail all the requirements in terms of paddy, for feeding 30 Śivayōgins and 20 Brāhmaṇas daily in the temple and for the maintenance of the several members of the temple staffs, which were to be met from the annual produce of the land granted.

Languages: Sanskrit, Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0357.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: The inscription is written in faulty language. This records an agreement given by Kāśyapaṉ Chandraśēkharaṉ Mūvāyiratteḻunūṟṟuva-Bhaṭṭaṉ a servant of the temple to Vēṇṇambi the agent of Ambalavaṉ Paḻuvūr-Nakkaṉ mentioned in No. 357 above to the effect that with the help of two assistants he would conduct special worship and offerings to the god on all the days of eclipse, saṅkrānti and vishu (ayanas) during the year, providing therefore the necessary requirements such as rice and ghee for the midday and ardha-yāma services, and oil for 5 lamps during each of the three sandhis and 2 during the śrībali offering, out of the piḍiligai-vāri (land ?) he had received free of cost. The gaṇa-pperumakkaḷ (trustees ?) of the temple represented by Tirunīlakantha-Kramavittaṉ were responsible for this service under the supervision of the sabhā of the village.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0358.

Emmanuel Francis.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0093.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a fragment of an inscription which seems to record an exchange of some dēvadāna lands with those belonging to Ōlochchaṉ Gaṇavadi Vaḍugaṉ with the permission of the Nāṭṭār and the Ūrār of Siṟṟūr.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0471.

Emmanuel Francis.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0094.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: The end of this inscription is lost. As, however, the preserved part is identical with the above-published inscriptions Nos. 40, 41 and 66, it may be safely concluded, that the inscription belongs to Ko-Rājarāja-Rājakesarivarman, alias Rājarāja-deva. The mention of Iraṭṭa-pāḍi shows, that the inscription dates after the twenty-first year of the king.¹

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0095.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: The inscription is not correctly engraved. It is also unfinished. It seems to record a purchase of some land from the sabhā of Śiṟupuliyūr by the ūrār of Karainalūr in Pērāvūr-nāḍu for gift to god Kavaiyāḷvār (?).

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0068.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This records an allotment of 6 mā of land to the person singing the Tiruppadiyam (hymns), a quarter śey (i.e. 5 mā) to those supplying water for the sacred bath of the god, and another quarter to the uvachchar (of the temple) out of the land purchased at Śiṟṟānaichchūr by Kaṟṟaḷippichchaṉ of Tiruvāḍutuṟai. This donor figures in a few inscriptions of Parāntaka I, in one of which dated in his 25th year (M.E.R. No. 126 of 1925) he is stated to have built the temple. This may therefore be assigned to a successor of Parāntaka, probably Uttama-Chōḷa.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv19p0i0069.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: On the base of this temple, there are at least three obliterated inscriptions besides the preceding one. In the second line of the fourth inscription there occurs the following passage.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0096.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This inscription is dated in the Durmati year (tuṉmativaruṣaM) and mentions the temple of Rājendra-Choḷeśvara at Śoṛapuram (coḻapuram Uṭaiyār Irācentiracoḷicuramuṭaiya nāyaṉār koyil).

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0097.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This inscription is dated in the Raktākshi year, which was current after the expiration of the Śālivāhana-Śaka year 1546. It mentions Śoṛapuram and seems to record some meritorious gift in connection with the tank by Veṅkaṭappa-nāyaka.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0098.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: A considerable-number of inscribed stones are built into the walls of this temple; but they are not in their original order, and it must be assumed, that either the temple had been destroyed and was rebuilt, or that it was constructed from stones which belonged to another old temple. The subjoined fragments contain the following dates and names:—

No. 106 is dated in “the forty-first year of Tribhuvanachakravartin, the illustrious Rājarāja-deva,”¹ and No. 103 in the Dhālu year, which was current after the expiration of the Śaka year 1258. No. 100 begins with the name of “Sakalalokachakravartin Rājanārāyaṇa Śambova.”² Nos. 104 and 105 mention Gāṅgeya-nallūr, alias Śrī-Mallinātha-chaturvedi-maṅgalam, and according to No. 102, Gā[ṅgeya-nallūr] was a village in Karaivaṛi-Āndi-nāḍu,³ (a division) of [Pa]ḍuvūr-koṭṭam. Other localities mentioned in the subjoined fragments are: Paḍaivīḍu,⁴ Kāṭṭuppāḍi⁵ and Kaṟugeri in No. 103, and Aṇaippāḍi in No. 104. No. 99 mentions the Ammaiappeśvara Temple,⁶ and No. 101 the same and the Kailāsa Temple.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0099.

Emmanuel Francis.

Language: Sanskrit.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv01p0i0009.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This inscription consists of nine sections engraved on the north wall and four sections on the west wall of the central shrine. It opens with a Sanskrit ślōka, according to which it is an edict of Rājarāja, (alias) Rājakēsarivarman. The remainder of the inscription, like all the other Tañjāvūr inscriptions, is written in Tamil.

After the list of conquests, which is found at the beginning of many inscriptions of the Chōḷa king Rājarāja, paragraph 2 contains the date, after which this and all the other Tañjāvūr inscriptions were incised. On the 20th day of the 26th year of his reign, Kō-Rājakēsarivarman, alias Rājarājadēva, issued orders, that the gifts made by himself, those made by his elder sister (viz., Kundavaiyār), those made by his wives, and those made by other donors should be engraved on the stone walls of the temple. A second important fact, which we learn from paragraph 2, is, that the Tañjāvūr temple had been built by Rājarājadēva himself, and that it was called after him Rājarājēśvara, i.e., the Īśvara (temple) of Rājarāja.

Paragraphs 3 to 107 contain a list of gold images, vessels and ornaments, which the king himself presented to the temple of Rājarājēśvara (paragraphs 3 to 98) and to the image of Dakshiṇa-Mēru-Viṭaṅkar (paragraphs 99 to 107) on the following dates:—

• Paragraphs 3 and 4: 25th year, 312th day.

• Paragraphs 5 to 9: 26th year, 14th day.

• Paragraphs 10 to 16: 26th year, 27th day.

• Paragraphs 17: 26th year, 34th day.

• Paragraphs 18: 25th year, 275th day.

• Paragraphs 19 to 32: 26th year, 104th day.

• Paragraphs 33: 26th year, 318th day.

• Paragraphs 34 to 50: 26th year, 319th day.

• Paragraphs 51 to 107: 23rd to 29th year.

The last set of paragraphs (51 to 107) was incised at a later date than the preceding part of the inscription, to which it refers as previously engraved (paragraph 51).

Part of the gifts, which the king made between his 23rd and 29th year, were taken from the treasures, which he seized after having defeated the Chēra king and the Pāṇḍyas in Malaināḍu¹ (paragraphs 34, 51, 52 and 107). A number of gold trumpets were presented to the temple, after he had assumed the titles of Śivapādaśēkhara, ‘the devotee of Śiva,’ and of Rājarāja, ‘the king of kings’ (paragraph 55), and a number of gold flowers, after he had returned from the conquest of Satyāśraya (paragraph 92).

Each of the gifts is stated to have been weighed by ‘the stone called (after) Āḍa-vallāṉ.’ This was evidently a standard weight for gold, or a set of such weights, made of stone and preserved at the shrine of the god Āḍavallāṉ or Āḍavallār, who was also called Dakshiṇa-Mēru-Viṭaṅkar.²

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0001.

Emmanuel Francis.

Language: Undetermined.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv22p0i0001.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a Sanskrit inscription in early Grantha characters. It gives the genealogy of the family of Koḍumbāḷur Chiefs. The first line is mutilated and hence the name of the original ancestor is not known. He is said to have captured an elephant battalion evidently from some enemy. In his family was born Paravīrajit Vīratuṅga; his son was Atīvīra, the unrivalled (Anupama); his son was Saṅghakṛit to whom was born Nṛipakēsari; his son was Paradurgamarddana, the glorious conqueror of Vātāpi. To him was born Samarābhirāma who killed Chaḷukki in a battle at Adhirājamaṅgala. He married a princess named Anupamā the daughter of the Chōḷa king. His son by this princess was Bhūti who by his prowess in battle obtained the title Vikramakēsari. He is stated to have made the waters of the Kāvēri red with the blood of the Pallava army slain by him. He also conquered Vīra-Pāṇḍya in battle and destroyed one Vañchi-Vēḷ. It is stated that he was living at Koḍumbāḷūr with his two wives Kaṟṟaḷi and Varaguṇā, by the former of whom he had two sons Parāntakavarman and Ādityavarman. This Bhūti Vikramakēsari built three shrines in the name of himself and his two consorts for god Mahēśvara at Koḍumbāḷūr, and presented a maṭha to Mallikārjuna of Madura, a teacher of the Kāḷāmukha sect of Śaivas and eleven villages for feeding 50 ascetics of that sect (every day).

Since this chief Bhūti Vikramakēsari is known from other stone records to be identical with Teṉṉavaṉ Iḷaṅgōvēḷ a feudatory of Chōḷa Āditya I, it is possible that the destruction of the Pallava army claimed by him was in connection with his liege-lord Āditya’s overthrow of Pallava Aparājita in battle and his annexation of the latter’s territory sometime before A.D. 890. In this case Vīra-Pāṇḍya over whom also, Bhūti claims a victory cannot be equated with his namesake who was killed in fight by Āditya II Karikāla (vide An. Rept. for 1908, Part II, para 88), because that event took place more than 70 years later. He should have been a contemporary of Parāntaka Vīra-Nārāyaṇa and probably belonging to a collateral Pāṇḍya line as surmised by Mr. K.V.S. Aiyar (Q.J.M.S. Vol. XLIII, Nos. 3 and 4).

Languages: Sanskrit, Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0129.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a mutilated inscription of Rājēndra-Chōḷa I with only a part of his historical introduction in good preservation, the rest being lost.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0130.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is an inscription of Jaṭāvarman Vīra Pāṇḍyadēva dated in his 17th year, Siṁha, śu. 10, Thursday, Mūlam, corresponding to A.D. 1269, August 10. He seems to be the same as the ruler whose accession took place in A.D. 1253. The record begins with a short introduction mentioning his victories over Koṅgaṇam (Koṅgu), Vaḍugu (Vaḍugar), Gaṅgai-nāḍu (?) and the Kāvēri and his coronation of heroes and victors at Puliyūr (Chidambaram). It registers the sale of five pieces of land by the Kaikkōḷas and Kaikkōḷa-mudalis of Koḍumbāḷūr to the temple of Tirumudukuṉṟamuḍaiya-Nāyanār of the same village, in lieu of certain sums of money which seem to have been borrowed from the temple by them sometime previously and by their forebears (?). Owing to the damaged state of the record the sense of the inscription in its details is not clear. Mention is made of Poṉ, Paḻan-Śōḻiyan-kāśu and Vīra-Pāṇḍyan-kāśu of which the values seem to have stood in the ratio 110: 670: 1050. Again 150 Paṇam is said to answer to 10505 kāśu and 110 kaḻañju to 12505 kāśu in which the paṇam and kāśu are general terms to be understood specifically according to the prevalent usage.

Koḍumbāḷūr is said to be situated in Uṟattūr-kūṟṟam a division of Koṅāḍu otherwise called Kaḍalaḍaiyād-ilangai-koṇḍa-Śōḻa-vaḷanāḍu.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0131.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This belongs to Jaṭāvarman Sundara-Pāṇḍyadēva. This is badly damaged. It seems to register a sale of land to the temple. With this are found two other pieces of an inscription which may not however form part of this record. One of them mentions a certain Pichchaṉ Toṇḍaṉ Vikrama-Pāṇḍya-paṉmaṉ the donor of some land to the temple of Tirumudukuṉṟam-uḍaiya-Nāyaṉār. He figures in No. 136 below of Māṟavarman Kulaśēkhara I.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0132.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a damaged and incomplete inscription of the [14]th year of Māṟavarman Sundara-Pāṇḍya (I) ‘who was pleased to present the chōḷa Country’. The details of the date are given as Mithuna, śu. 2, Sunday, Pushya which would give the equivalent A.D. 1229, May 27. It registers a gift of land called Māchchāttan-vayal by one Āḻvāṉ Tirukkoḍuṅ kuṉṟamuḍaiyāṉ alias Kulaśēkhara-Brahmārāyaṉ a Śivabrāhmaṇa of the temple of Tiruvattīśura-Nāyanār at Kāraiyūr in Śōḻa-Pāṇḍya-vaḷanāḍu to provide for the renewal of worship and offerings and for burning lamps during the ardhayāma service in the temple of Tirumudukuṉṟam-Uḍaiya-Nāyanār at Koḍumbāḷūr which had been discontinued. Reference is made to a temple of Māśāttīchchuram uḍaiya-Nāyaṉār.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0133.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This seems to be an unusual record―in faulty style―purporting to be an inscription dated in the 7th year of a Koḍumbāḷūr chief Vīraśōḻa-Irukkuvēḷ with the Chōḷa title Parakēsarivarman prefixed to his name. It states that on the representation (made to the chief) by Aḻagaṉ Vīraśōḻa-Aṇukkamāl of the uḍankūṭṭam (?), the kaṇmāḷar and some others (not clear), an image of the diety called Akkaśāliśvaram-Uḍai[yār] was consecrated in the temple of Tirumudugaṟam at Koḍumbāḷūr, and provision was made for its daily worship and offerings by means of a gift of a land known as Śēral-ēndal as dēvadāna.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0134.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a record of the 5th year of Māṟavarman Kulaśēkhara, which states that this kitchen called the Vijayapañjaraṉ-tirumaḍaippaḷḷi is the gift of the Nāṭṭavar of Muduśolkuḍi-nāḍu. Tirumudukuṉṟam is said to be situated in Vaḍa-Kōnāḍu a division of Uṟattūr-Kūṟṟam in Kōnāḍu.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0135.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This registers the perpetual lease of the tenancy right over a land known as Iluppaikkuḍi, given by the temple authorities (sthānattār) of Tirumudukuṉṟam-uḍaiya-Nāyaṉār to one Dēvaṉ Tirunelvēli-Uḍaiyār. The land which is said to have been endowed to the temple, by a kaikkōḷa of Koḍumbāḷūr by name Vīraṉ Toṇḍaṉ alias Vikkira[ma*]-Pāṇḍyapanmar, for the conduct of the ardhayāma service, had been left fallow for a long time following a breach and destruction of the tank-bund and consequent spread of wild growth. The lessee now paid 100 paṇam to the temple as parivaṭṭamudal (price of temple honour ?) and undertook to repair the breach, and after clearing the wilderness, to bring the land under cultivation and to measure out 7 kalam, 1 tūṇi and 1 padakku of paddy on every mā of land, whether cultivated with paddy or some other products like turmeric, ginger, betel or sugarcane.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0136.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This pillar is stated to be the gift of one Śeṭṭi Kambaṉ alias Jaṉanātha Aṇukkap-Pallavaraiyaṉ. Another inscription evidently engraved on a different pillar gives the name of the donor as Maṅgan Tāmattaṉ alias Kolōttuṅgaśōḻa . . . . . . . . . Both the donors were Kaikkoḷa residents of the place.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0137.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is dated in the 5th year of some king whose name is not given. Perhaps it was Vīra-Pāṇḍya. Mention is made of Rishabhapperumāṉaḍigaḷ (Nandi) in the Tiruppūdīśvaram temple.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0138.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a mere fragment of an inscription mentioning Uḍaiyār Madhurāṉtakan Śundaraśōḻaṉ. Reference is made to a woman servant of the royal palace by name Kaḷḷichchi Uttama cha . . . . . . . . . and one Pūdi Paṭṭālakaṉ Nakka . . . . . . and also to two classes of smiths (Kottar) of Koḍumbāḷūr.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0139.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: These are fragments of some Kannaḍa inscriptions in early characters. One of them refers to the reign of Madurekōṇḍa Kōpa . . . . . . . . . and to a case of self immolation by an individual by means of khaṇḍasphuṭita (mutilation of flesh ?). The second piece mentions a tank built for (?) one . . . . . . Kēsarīśvaradēva, and the third refers to Vīra-Pāṇḍya-Iḷaṅgōvēḷār ruling at Koḍumbāḷūr, Vikrama . . . . . . . . . dēva and to one Māramaseṭṭi.

Language: Kannada.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0140.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a much damaged and fragmentary inscription in Grantha which should have formed part of a genealogy. Atri is mentioned.

Language: Sanskrit.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0141.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This is a small inscription in characters of about the 9th century A.D. which states that this (cave) is the gift of one Pūdi Kaḷari alias Amarūṉṟi-Muttaraiyaṉ.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0142.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This records the gift of a gold fillet for ornament and three silver vessels for holding the offerings to god Mahādēva (in the temple) at Tiruviśalūr in Śōḻamārttāṇḍa-chaturvēdimaṅgalam a brahmadēya village to the east of Vēmbaṟṟūr in Maṇṇi-nāḍu a subdivision of Rājendraśiṅga-vaḷanāḍu on the north bank (of the Kāvēri). The donor was a sēnāpati (military officer) by name Śōlaimāṇikkam also called Śōlai Naralōkasundaraṉ alias Uttamaśōḻa-Mūvēndavēḷān. Rājēndra-siṁha and Śōḻamārttāṇḍa were surnames borne by the king’s father Rājarāja I and Uttama-Chōḷa was a title of Rājēndra himself. Two different weights are mentioned in the inscription, one called the kuḍiñaikkal and the other the baṇḍārakkal.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv23p0i0001.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: Registers a gift of land by Uyyakkoṇḍāḷśāṉi, wife of Kunikkumpirāṉbhaṭṭaṉ of Rājakēsari-chaturvēdimaṅgalam, a brahmadēya in Nallūr-nāḍu, a subdivision of Nittavinōda-vaḷanāḍu, as tiruviḍaiyāṭṭam to god Aḻagiyamaṇavāḷa-Perumāḷ. The gift was made in the 37th regnal year of the king.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv24p0i0150.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: Fragments. Seem to refer to a gift by purchase, of land by Mūtta Gōvindakramavittaṉ and his brothers to the god. One of the fragments refers to endowment to Purushōttamattu-Emberumāṉ by the Peruṅguṟisabhā of Uttamaśīli-chaturvēdimaṅgalam and another mentions Śrīkaṇṭha-chaturvēdimaṅgalam.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv24p0i0184.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: Records a decision of the members of the Peruṅguṟisabhā of Śrīraṅgam disqualifying persons who were not residents of the village from holding the dēvadāna and other lands from the 5th year onwards of the king’s reign and stipulates a fine of 25 poṉ on the members of the paṇḍāravāriyam and the karaṇattār who violated this decision.

The record is dated in the 4th year and 89th day of the reign of Rājakēsarivarman who may be identified with Āditya I (A.D. 871-907) on palaeographical consideration.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv24p0i0001.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: West base of the verandah in the first prākāra in the Mantrapurīśvara temple.

Tribhº Rājēndrachōḷa: year 12: 1257 A.D.

This inscription may be assigned to the 13th century on palaeographical considerations.

Except the solar month Āḍi of the above regnal year, other details of date are not furnished in the record.

This is an order (ōlai) of Paiyyuḻān Pallavarāyan Vāṇarāyaṉ alias Śōḻiyavaraiyaṉ. It records the grant of oru-mā-mukkāṇi-araikkāṇi-kīḻaraiyēiraṇḍu-mā lands at Nambankuṟuchchi, a hamlet (piḍāgai) of Śākkāṉam alias Kēraḷakulāśaṉich-chaturvēdimaṅgalam as maḍappuṟa-iṟaiyili to a maṭha called Vāṇarāyaṉ-maṭha, located in the street to the north of the tirumaḍaiviḷḍgam of the temple of Tiruvuśāttāṉam-uḍaiya-nāyaṉār. It is stated that the above lands were to be enjoyed as iṟaiyili along with Makkuḻan-kāṇi and the income from taxes (kaḍamai) accrued out of the above. The document was attested by Ādikāram Vāṉavan Pallavaraiyan and by others called mudal-kaṇakku (names of four of these persons are furnished).

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv25p0i0211.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: North wall of the first prākāra of the Pālvaṇṇanāthasvāmi temple.

Chaḍaiyavarmaṉ Tribhº Kōnērin-maikoṇḍāṉ Abhirāma Varatuṅga-rāma Vīrapāṇḍya Śaka 1511: 1588 A.D.

This epigraph commences with a Sanskrit verse invoking Śiva.

The details of date viz., Śaka 1511, regnal year 2, Sarvadhāri, dakshiṇāyana, Dhanu-Ravi 6 Wednesday, ēkādaśi, Svāti-nakshatra corresponding to 1588 A.D., December 4.

It records the grant of Vaṅgaikuḷam in Mallayampaṭṭu in Āriya-nāḍu as kuḍinīṅg-dēvadāṉa to Śeṇbagavaṉap-perumāḷ Irāmīchchuraṉ, who has to expend annually 20 paṇam to meet the expenses of the birth-day celebration of the king on the star of Pūsa falling in the month of Puraṭṭāśi.

An order (ōlai) was issued to this effect by the vāśalttāṉigar to the kaṇakkar (accountant) and drafted in the name of Ādichaṇḍēśvaran.

Languages: Sanskrit, Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv25p0i0272.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: North wall of the first prākāra of the Pālvaṇṇanāthasvāmi temple.

Perumāḷ Parākrama-pāṇḍya Śaka 1469, year 5:

This inscription furnishes the details of date viz., Śaka 1469, year 5, Plavaṅga, Kārttigai, . . . 3, Monday, Tiruvādirai-nakshatra.

It seems to record the assignment of tiruvilāñchiṉai and karuvēlagam, obtained as kāṇiyāṭchai, to Āṇḍukoṇḍunayiṇāṉ Kaḍaiyōgakāttāṉ of Aḷḷikuṉṟa Mārttaṉūr-udaiyāṉ in Vaḍamuṭṭa-nāḍu.

The details of the grant are lost as it is incomplete. The division Vaḍamuṭṭa-nāḍu figures in a record of Āttūr in Tiruchchendur taluk (Cf. S.I.I., Vol. XIV, No. 214).

The king is stated to have been the son of Aḻagaṉ Perumāḷ Parākrama-pāṇḍyadēva, who bears a string of epithets in the present record and also mentioned to have been born on the day of Aśvati (Aśvini)-nakshatra.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv25p0i0277.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: Slab kept in the Siddharmaḍam on the sea-shore.

It is in Nāgarī characters and Marāṭhī language.

It refers to Bābā-Gōsāvi, son of Sētu[bā]vā-svāmi, described as advē-(vait)-āgrēsara, and mentions rājādhirāja mahārājarāje Pratāpasiha, (and his son), mahārājādhirājīvarāje Tulajā-mahārāja, svāmibhakti-dhuraṁdhara-rājē Aṁṇājirāva and raiśa bhāgavata Dāvagōṭhagē, son of a certain sēṭha, probably named Gē[ga]. It ends with a benediction.

Language: Marathi.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv26p0i0001.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: In the same place as above.

Kulōttuṅgachōḷadēva I: Year 49 = 1118-19 A.D.

This inscription records the gift of tax and all other levies such as antarāya from the village Kīḻkkaṇṇamaṅgalam for food offerings to god Tirumalaiuḍaiyanāyanār of Tirukkuṉṟakkuḍi, at the time of the procession of the deity, by Vīraśēkharan alias Adalaiyūr-nāḍāḻvān, who is described as Nāṭṭāṉ.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv26p0i0032.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: In the introductory remarks to No. 58 (page 229 f.) I had occasion to refer to four inscriptions of Rājarājadēva, the lower portions of which are buried underground. Two of these (Nos. 65 and 66),—which, to judge from their beginnings, promised a rich harvest of proper names,—were since temporarily excavated, and impressions of them taken, by my assistants. This led to the discovery of two further inscriptions, which are engraved underneath No. 66, one of Rājēndradēva (No. 67), and one of Vikrama-Chōḷadēva (No. 68). I did not consider it worth while to excavate and copy the whole of Nos. 63 and 64, but shall now publish their first two lines as specimens.

From the published portion of No. 63, we learn that this inscription consists of a list of shepherds who had to supply ghee for temple lamps from the milk of a number of cattle, which had been presented to the temple before the 29th year of the reign of Rājarājadēva by the king himself and by others, or bought from the funds of the temple. To each lamp were allotted 96 ewes,¹ or 48 cows, or 16 she-buffaloes. The daily supply for each lamp was one uṛakku of ghee.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0063.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: As appears from its 1st paragraph, this inscription is a continuation of No. 63. The published portion of the 2nd paragraph refers to a shepherd who had received 96 ewes,¹ viz., 69 ewes given by Rājarājadēva, and 27 ewes purchased for 9 kāśu, in order to supply ghee for a temple lamp.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0064.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: The beginning of the first five lines of this inscription is hidden by a flight of steps, which has been constructed in front of the shrine after the time when the inscription was engraved. The record is dated in the cyclic year Kshaya which was current after the expiration of the Śaka year 1368 (A.D. 1446-47), and during the reign of Dēvar[āya II.] (of Vijayanagara). It describes a few gold and silver ornaments which were presented to the temple by a certain Vallabhadēva. This person was probably a military officer of Dēvarāya, as he professes to have made the gift with the object of effecting in return the conquest of the world.

While, in the Chōḷa inscriptions of the Tanjore temple, the weight of ornaments is given in kaṛañju, mañjāḍi and kuṉṟi, the subjoined inscription employs for this purpose the tūkkam of ten paṇa-iḍai. From the table of weights, which is contained in Sir Walter Elliot’s Coins of Southern India, p. 47, and which is based on a Malayāḷam work entitled Kaṇakkusāram, it appears that the tūkkam and paṇa-iḍai of the subjoined inscription must be identical with the kaṛañju and paṇattūkkam (= 2 mañjāḍi) of the metrical system. Although the paṇa-iḍai or paṇattūkkam (=1/10 kaṛañju) is not mentioned in the Tanjore inscriptions of the Chōḷas, it is there presupposed by the fact that the Tamil term mā (1/20) is used to denote ‘one tenth whenever it follows the word mañjāḍi (= 1/2 paṇa-iḍai or paṇattūkkam).¹

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0071.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: Hero-stone (No. 2) lying in a field about two furlongs to the east of Lōkanāthēśvara temple.

Pallavarasa (?), circa 9th century.

This record, in characters of about the 9th century A.D., states that while Pallō-arasa (Pallavarasa ?) was ruling the nāḍu and Śāte-arasa of the Vaidumba family was administering this ūr (i.e., Kāppalle ?) and Kōṇakkī attacked the village in a cattle-raid after collecting mārukoṭṭa, Pōrighaṭeśūṟe, son of Vaidumba Śūraparasa, the chief of Muttukūru, died after gaining victory for the king and for himself and saving the cattle. He was granted some land (maṇṇarasiṁgin-pāḍu ?) in memory.

Language: Kannada.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv27p0i0001.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: The rock-cut Śaiva shrine at Vallam near Chingleput¹ bears two Tamil inscriptions. One of them, which belongs to the 13th century A.D., is engraved on the lower portion of the right door-pillar.² It records the gift of a lamp in the 14th year of Sakalabhuvanachakravartin Kōpperuñjiṅgadēva³ (i.e., Kō-Perum-Siṁhadēva) to the temple of Vayandīśura (i.e., Vasantēśvara) at Vallam in Valla-nāḍu, (a subdivision) of Kaḷattūr-kōṭṭam.⁴ The second, very archaic inscription is engraved on the upper portions of both door-pillars and records that the temple was built by Skandasēna, the son of Vasantapriyarāja, who was a vassal of Mahēndrapōtarāja. From the later inscription of Kōpperuñjiṅgadēva, it follows further that Skandasēna called the temple Vasantēśvara after his father Vasanta. Mahēndrapōtarāja, whose vassal Vasanta professes to be, must have been a Pallava king. This is already suggested by the first part of his name, which occurs twice in the list of the Pallavas, as far as it is known (Vol. I, p. 11). The second part of the king’s name, Pōtarāja,⁵ forms part of Īśvarapōtarāja,⁶ as the Pallava king Paramēśvaravarman I. is called in a grant of Vikramāditya I. (Vol. I, p. 145), and of Nandipōtarāja,⁷ which is used as an equivalent of Nandivarman in the Kaśākūḍi plates (No. 73 below, line 90). Finally, the birudas which the king receives in the Vallam cave-inscription, have their parallels in other Pallava inscriptions. With Lalitāṅkura compare Lalita and Nayāṅkura in the Dharmarāja Ratha inscriptions (Vol. I, p. 3). Śatrumalla and Guṇabhara occur also in the two cave-inscriptions on the Trichinopoly rock (Vol. I, p. 29). Though birudas are a somewhat unsafe basis for identification, it may be provisionally assumed that both the Trichinopoly cave-inscriptions of Guṇabhara, alias Śatrumalla, and the Vallam cave-inscription of Mahēndrapōtarāja belong to one of the two Pallava kings called Mahēndravarman, i.e., to the first half of the seventh century of our era.⁸

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0072.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: On the 30th April 1891, Professor Julien Vinson, of Paris, was good enough to send me a reprint¹ of his paper Spécimen de Paléographie Tamoule, which contains an analysis of, and extracts from, the subjoined copper-plate inscription. The original plates had been discovered in 1879 at Kaśākūḍi, 4 kilometres from Kāraikkāl (Karikal),² by M. Jules de la Fon, of Pondicherry. Professor Vinson’s paper, which is based on a tracing prepared by M. de la Fon, convinced me of the importance of the inscription and induced me to apply through Government to His Excellency the Governor of the French Settlements in India for a loan of the original plates. This request was most graciously and promptly complied with. After I had transcribed the plates and prepared impressions of them, they were returned to their present owner.

The Kaśākūḍi copper-plates, eleven in number, are strung on a ring. On this is soldered the royal seal, with the figure of a bull which faces the left and is surmounted by a liṅga. The bull was the crest of the Pallavas,³ while their banner bore the figure of Śiva’s club (khaṭvāṅga).⁴ The Grantha and Tamil characters of the inscription resemble those of the Kūram plates (Vol. I, No. 151). The major portion of the inscription is in the Sanskrit language (lines 1 to 104). The particulars of the grant are repeated, with considerable additions, in the Tamil language (ll. 104 to 133). The concluding portion of the inscription is again in Sanskrit (ll. 133 to 138), with a short parenthetical note in Tamil (l. 137).

The immediate object of the inscription is to record the grant of a village, made in the 22nd year of the reign (ll. 80 and 105) of the Pallava king Nandivarman (verses 27 and 30, and l. 79). As in other Pallava copper-plate inscriptions, the grant proper is preceded by a panegyrical account of the king’s ancestors, which adds a large number of new details to our knowledge of the Pallava history. After nine benedictory verses, the author names the following mythical ancestors of the Pallava dynasty:—

Brahmā (v. 10). Aṅgiras (11). Bṛihaspati (12). Śaṁyu (13). Bharadvāja (14). Drōṇa (15). Aśvatthāman (16). Pallava (17). Aśōkavarman (19).

This last king can scarcely be considered a historical person, but appears to be a modification of the ancient Maurya king Aśōka. Then follows a passage in prose, which informs us that, after this Aśōkavarman, there ruled a number of other Pallava kings, viz., [S]kandavarman, Kal[i]ndavarman, Kāṇagōpa, Vishṇugōpa, Vīrakū[r]cha, Vīrasiṁha, Siṁhavarman, Vishṇusiṁha and others (l. 48 f.). Some of these names actually occur in the inscriptions of that ancient branch of the Pallavas, whose grants are dated from Palakkada, Daśanapura and Kāñchīpura, viz., Skandavarman, Siṁhavarman, Vishṇugōpavarman,⁵ and Vīrakōrchavarman.⁶ The Amarāvatī pillar-inscription (Vol. I, No. 32) mentions two kings named Siṁhavarman. But the order in which these names are enumerated, is completely different in each of the three available sources for the history of the early Pallavas, viz., the Amarāvatī pillar, the early copper-inscriptions, and the prose introduction of the Kaśākūḍi plates. For this reason, and on account of the summary manner in which the early kings are referred to by the author of the Kaśākūḍi inscription, it is a mistake to derive a regular pedigree from the latter, as was done by Professor Vinson (l.c., p. 453); and it must be rather concluded that, at the time of Nandivarman, nothing was known of the predecessors of Siṁhavishṇu, but the names of some of them, and that the order of their succession, and their relation to each other and to the subsequent line of Siṁhavishṇu, were then entirely forgotten.

With verse 20 we enter on historical ground. The list of kings from Siṁhavishṇu to the immediate predecessor of Nandivarman agrees with the Udayēndiram plates of Nandivarman Pallavamalla (No. 74). Siṁhavishṇu appears to have borne the surname Avanisiṁha, and is stated to have defeated the Malaya, Kaḷabhra, Mālava, Chōḷa, Pāṇḍya, Siṁhaḷa and Kēraḷa kings.

His successor Mahēndravarman I. “annihilated his chief enemies at Puḷḷalūra” (v. 21). The ‘chief enemies’ were probably the Chalukyas, who, in their turn, considered the Pallavas their ‘natural enemies.’⁷ As Puḷḷalūr is the name of a village in the Conjeeveram tālluqa,⁸ it appears that the Chalukya army had made an inroad into the Pallava dominions, before it was repulsed by Mahēndravarman I.

His son Narasiṁhavarman I. is reported to have conquered Laṅkā, i.e., Ceylon, and to have captured Vātāpi,⁹ the capital of the Western Chalukyas. The Kūram and Udayēndiram plates supply the name of the conquered Chalukya king, Pulakēśin or Vallabharāja, i.e., Pulikēśin II.¹⁰ The conquest of Ceylon to which the Kaśākūḍi plates refer, is confirmed from an unexpected source. From the 47th chapter of the Mahāvaṁsa¹¹ we learn that the Singhalese prince Māṇavamma lived at the court of king Narasīha of India and helped him to crush his enemy, king Vallabha. The grateful Narasīha supplied Māṇavamma twice with an army to invade Ceylon. The second attack was successful. Māṇavamma occupied Ceylon, over which he is supposed to have ruled from A.D. 691 to 726. As both the Pallava inscriptions and the Mahāvaṁsa mention the war with Vallabha and the conquest of Ceylon, the identity of Narasīha and Narasiṁhavarman I. can hardly be doubted. As, however, the latest date of Pulikēśin II. is A.D. 642,¹² the accession of Māṇavamma must have taken place about half a century before A.D. 691.¹³

No details are given about the reign of Narasiṁhavarman’s son Mahēndravarman II. The latter was succeeded by his son Paramēśvarapōtavarman I. who, as we know from the Kūram and Udayēndiram plates, defeated the Western Chalukya king Vikramāditya I. at Peruvaḷanallūr. The Kaśākūḍi plates do not contain any historical information about him, nor about his son Narasiṁhavarman II. and his grandson Paramēśvarapōtavarman II.

According to the Udayēndiram plates, the next king, Nandivarman, was the son of Paramēśvaravarman II. The Kaśākūḍi plates contain an entirely different account of Nandivarman’s parentage. In line 72, he professes to be “engaged in ruling the kingdom of Paramēśvarapōtarāja;” and in verse 27, he is said to be ruling, at the time of the inscription, the kingdom of Paramēśvarapōtavarman II., i.e., to have succeeded or supplanted the latter on the throne, and to have been “chosen by the subjects.” This plebiscite may have taken place after the death of the legitimate king; or, more probably, Nandivarman may have been an usurper who ousted and destroyed him and his family. At any rate, he was a remote kinsman of his predecessor. For, he was the son of Hiraṇya (verses 9 and 30) by Rōhiṇī and belonged to the branch (varga) of Bhīma (verse 30). According to verse 28, this branch of Bhīma took its origin from Bhīmavarman, who was the younger brother of Siṁhavishṇu. The names of three princes who intervened between Bhīmavarman and Hiraṇya, are recorded in the same verse. The name Hiraṇyavarma-Mahārāja occurs several times in a much obliterated inscription of the Vaikuṇṭha-Perumāḷ temple at Kānchīpuram. At the beginning of this inscription, Paramēśvarappōttaraiyar of the Pallava-vaṁśa is mentioned as deceased (svargastha). It is therefore not improbable that the inscription recorded the accession of Hiraṇyavarman or of his son Nandivarman after the death of Paramēśvarapōtavarman II. The latter may have been the founder of the Vaikuṇṭha-Perumāḷ temple, which is called Paramēśvara-Vishṇugṛiha, i.e., ‘the Vishṇu temple of Paramēśvara,’ in another inscription of the Vaikuṇṭha-Perumāḷ temple.¹⁴ With the addition of the new branch, the list of the later Pallavas stands as follows:—

Unnamed ancestor.[C1]1. Siṁhavishṇu. [C1]2. Mahēndravarman I. [C2]Bhīmavarman. [C1]3. Narasiṁhavarman I. [C2]Buddhavarman. [C1]4. Mahēndravarman II. [C2]Ādityavarman. [C1]5. Paramēśvarapōtavarman or Paramēśvaravarman I. [C2]Gōvindavarman. [C1]6. Narasiṁhavarman II. [C2]Hiraṇya. [C1]7. Paramēśvarapōtavarman or Paramēśvaravarman II. [C2]8. Nandivarman.

Other forms of the name Nandivarman are Nandipōtarāja (l. 90) and simply Nandin (l. 88). The form Nandipōtavarman occurs in the Vakkalēri plates,¹⁵ which refer to the defeat of the Pallava king by the Western Chalukya king Vikramāditya II., and the form Nandippōttaraiyar in an inscription of his 18th year in the Ulagaḷanda-Perumāḷ temple at Kāñchīpuram.¹⁶ He bore the sovereign titles Mahārāja and Rājādhirāja-paramēśvara and the birudas Kshatriyamalla, Pallavamalla (l. 78), and Śrīdhara (verse 29). According to verse 30, he was a devotee of Vishṇu. At the request of his prime-minister (l. 89), Brahmaśrīrāja (l. 91) or Brahmayuvarāja (ll. 103 and 106), the king gave the village of Koḍukoḷḷi (ll. 99, 105 f.) to the Brāhmaṇa Jyēshṭhapāda-Sōmayājin (l. 93) or (in Tamil) Śēṭṭiṟeṅga-Sōmayājin (l. 108 f.), who belonged to the Bharadvāja (l. 94) or Bhāradvāja (l. 108) gōtra, followed the Chhandōgasūtra (ll. 94 and 108), and resided at Pūniya (l. 95) or Pūni (l. 108), a village in the Toṇḍāka-rāshṭra (l. 95). The village of Koḍukoḷḷi, on becoming a brahmadēya, received the new name Ēkadhīramaṅgalam (l. 100). It belonged to Ūṟṟukkāṭṭu-kōṭṭam (l. 105) or (in Sanskrit) Undivanakōshṭhaka (l. 98), a subdivision of Toṇḍāka-rāshṭra, and was bounded in the east and south by Pālaiyūr, in the west by Maṇaṟpākkam and Koḷḷipākkam, and in the north by Veḷimānallūr (ll. 98 f. and 111 ff.). Connected with the gift of the village was the right to dig channels from the Śēyāṟu or (in Sanskrit) Dūrasarit, the Veḥkā or Vēgavatī, and the tank of Tīraiyaṉ or Tīralaya (ll. 101 f. and 115 ff.).

Of these geographical names, the following can be identified. Toṇḍāka-rāshṭra is,—like Toṇḍīra-maṇḍala, Tuṇḍīra-maṇḍala and Tuṇḍāka-vishaya,¹⁷—a Sanskritised form of the Tamil term Toṇḍai-maṇḍalam. One of the 24 ancient divisions (kōṭṭam) of the latter was Ūṟṟukkāṭṭu-kōṭṭam, which owed its name to Ūṟṟukkāḍu, a village in the present Conjeeveram tālluqa.¹⁸ This kōṭṭam was divided into four subdivisions (nāḍu), one of which was Pālaiyūr-nāḍu.¹⁹ The head-village of this subdivision, Pālaiyūr, appears to be identical with the village of Pālaiyūr, which formed the south-eastern boundary of the granted village, and perhaps with the modern Pālūr at the north-western extremity of the Chingleput tālluqa.²⁰ The western boundary of the granted village, Maṇaṟpākkam, would then be represented by the modern Mēlamaṇappākkam.²¹ For the granted village, Koḍukoḷḷi, itself and for the two remaining villages which formed its boundaries, no equivalents are found on the maps at my disposal. The village at which the donee resided, Pūni, may be the modern Pūṇḍi, which belongs to the Conjeeveram tālluqa,²² but is in close proximity of Pālūr and Mēlamaṇappākkam in the Chingleput tālluqa. The proposed identification of these three villages is made more probable by the reference, made in the Kaśākūḍi plates, to two rivers near which the granted village of Koḍukoḷḷi was situated. Of these, the Vēgavatī or Veḥkā passes Conjeeveram and falls into the Pālāṟu near Villivalam.²³ The Śēyāṟu forms the southern boundary of the modern Conjeeveram tālluqa and joins the Pālāṟu opposite Mēlamaṇappākkam, which I have identified with Maṇaṟpākkam, the western boundary of Koḍukoḷḷi.

The executor (ājñapti) of the grant was Ghōraśarman (ll. 103 and 106), and the author of the Sanskrit portion, which, as in the Kūram plates (l. 89) and the Udayēndiram plates (ll. 101 and 105), is called a praśasti or eulogy, was a certain Trivikrama (verse 31). To the Sanskrit portion is affixed a Tamil endorsement (l. 104 f.), which directs the inhabitants of Ūṟṟukkāṭṭu-kōṭṭam to execute the order of the king. The subsequent Tamil passage (l. 105 ff.) records that, on receipt of the royal order, the representatives of Ūṟṟukkāṭṭu-kōṭṭam marked the boundaries of the granted village under the guidance of their headman, and formally assigned all rights to the donee. Another Tamil sentence (l. 132 f.) states that the grant was executed in the presence of the local authorities (?), the ministers and the secretaries.

Then follow, in Sanskrit, three imprecatory verses (l. 133 ff.) and the statement that the document was written by His Majesty’s great treasurer (l. 136). The inscription ends with a docket in Tamil (l. 137) and a few auspicious Sanskrit words.

Languages: Sanskrit, Source Language (other), Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0073.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This inscription has been already published by the Rev. T.Foulkes in the Indian Antiquary (Vol. VIII, p. 273 ff.) and in the Manual of the Salem District (Vol. II, p. 355 ff.). The original plates, together with the originals of four other copper-plate inscriptions¹ which were also edited by Mr. Foulkes, are preserved at Udayēndiram,² a village at the southwestern extremity of the Guḍiyātam tālluqa of the North Arcot district, and were kindly borrowed for me from their present owner by Mr. F.A.Nicholson, I.C.S., Acting Collector of North Arcot. The present whereabouts of two other copper-plate inscriptions from Udayēndiram,³ of which Mr. Foulkes obtained transcripts in the Telugu character, I was unable to ascertain. According to Mr. Foulkes, these two inscriptions formed part of a find of “five, or, by another account, seven sets of copper-plate inscriptions,” which was made in 1850 in a subterranean chamber in the Brāhmaṇa street at Udayēndiram. Mr. Foulkes then believed that the remaining three or five sets of the find were lost. As, however, Mr. Foulkes’ other grants (I, II, III, IV and V) are now preserved at Udayēndiram and are five in number, I think that they must be identical with the apparently missing five of the seven sets discovered at Udayēndiram in 1850.

The copper-plates which bear the subjoined inscription, are five in number. When they reached my hands, they were strung on a ring, which is cut and bears a circular seal. This contains, in high relief, on a counter-sunk surface, a recumbent bull, which faces the proper right and is placed on a pedestal between two lamps. Over the bull is a seated figure on a pedestal, and between two symbols which I cannot make out. The diameter of the seal is 3(1/4) inches, and that of the ring 4(1/2) to 4(7/8) inches. The ring is about (3/8) inch thick. A comparison of this description of the ring and seal with that given by Mr. Foulkes in the first paragraph of his edition of the plates, suggests that, when he examined the plates, they were accompanied by a different ring and seal. Besides, the seal which is now attached to the plates, does not resemble the seals of other Pallava grants, but is closely allied to the seal of the Udayēndiram plates of the Bāṇa king Vikramāditya II. (Mr. Foulkes’ No. V) and of the Gaṅga-Bāṇa king Pṛithivīpati II. Hastimalla (No. 76 below).⁴ I therefore believe that it may have originally belonged to one of the two Udayēndiram grants of the Bāṇa dynasty, which are now missing (Mr. Foulkes’ grants B and C), and that the original seal-ring of the Pallava plates may have been attached by mistake to one of these two grants and lost along with the latter.

The inscription consists of two distinct portions,—a grant of the Pallava king Nandivarman Pallavamalla in the Sanskrit language and the Grantha character (ll. 1 to 105), and a short inscription of the time of the Chōḷa king Madirai-koṇḍa Kō-Parakēsarivarman in the Tamil language and character (ll. 105 to 109), which, however, looks as if it had been written by the same hand as the first or Pallava part of the inscription. Further, the Grantha and Tamil alphabet of both portions of the inscription is considerably more modern than that of other Pallava grants, and even than that of two other copper-plate inscriptions of Madirai-koṇḍa Kō-Parakēsarivarman.⁵ Consequently, the plates are either a forgery, or they are a copy, made at a later date, of two inscriptions, one of Nandivarman Pallavamalla, and one Madirai-koṇḍa Kō-Parakēsarivarman, the originals of which are not within our reach.

The Sanskrit portion of the inscription records that, in the twenty-first year of his reign (l. 38), the Pallava king Nandivarman (v. 4, ll. 36 f. and 37 f.), surnamed Pallavamalla (ll. 36, 46 and 47), granted a village to one hundred and eight Brāhmaṇas (l. 64 f.). This grant was made at the request of one of his military officers or vassals, named Udayachandra (v. 1 and l. 61), who belonged to the race of Pūchān (v. 2, l. 45 f. and v. 7), that had been in the hereditary service of the Pallava race, and who resided at the city of Vilvala (v. 2 and l. 44) on the river Vēgavatī (l. 41). This river passes Conjeeveram, and falls into the Pālāṟu near the village of Villivalam,⁶ which accordingly must be the Tamil original of Vilvala, the Sanskrit name of the capital of Udayachandra. The three opening verses refer to the god Sadāśiva, the chief Udayachandra, and the race of the Pallavas, respectively. Then follows, in prose, a genealogy of the reigning Pallava king, the mythical portion of which (l. 8 ff.) contains the following names:— Brahmā. Aṅgiras. Bṛihaspati. Śaṁyu. Bharadvāja. Drōṇa. Aśvatthāman. Pallava.

The list of the historical descendants of Pallava from Siṁhavishṇu to Paramēśvaravarman II. (l. 11 ff.) need not be repeated here, because it agrees with the list in the Kaśākūḍi plates (p. 344), and because the battles which Narasiṁhavarman I. and Paramēśvaravarman I. are reported to have won,⁷ were noticed in the introduction to the Kūram plates (Vol. I, p. 145). A long prose passage (l. 19 ff.) opens with the words: “The son of this Paramēśvaravarman (II.) (was);” is interrupted by verses 4 to 6, which refer to the Pallava king Nandivarman; and appears to be taken up again by the words: “His son was Nandivarman Pallavamalla” (l. 36 f.). Mr. Foulkes concludes from this, that there were two successive Pallava kings of the name Nandivarman, the second of whom was the son of the first and bore the distinctive surname Pallavamalla.⁸ I do not think it probable that verses 4 to 6 are to be considered as forming one sentence with the first prose passage (l. 19 ff.), but would prefer to treat these verses as a parenthesis, and the second prose passage (l. 36 f.) as the end of the same sentence which begins with the first prose passage. In this way we obtain only one Pallava king named Nandivarman, who bore the surname Pallavamalla and was the son of Paramēśvaravarman II. This statement is at variance with the Kaśākūḍi plates, according to which Nandivarman Pallavamalla was not the son of his predecessor, but belonged to an entirely different branch of the Pallavas. Here is another point which might induce us to stamp the Udayēndiram plates as a forgery. For, it is difficult to understand how one and the same king could call himself the son of his predecessor in an inscription of his 21st year, and the son of somebody else in an inscription of his 22nd year. Two explanations might, however, be attempted. Nandivarman may have thought it political to give himself out for the adopted son of his predecessor; or it may be assumed that, through mere carelessness, the scribe who drafted the inscription, used the word putra, ‘son’ (ll. 19 and 37), while he wanted to represent Nandivarman only as a successor, and not as the son, of Paramēśvaravarman II.

The most interesting portion of the inscription is the account of the services which Udayachandra rendered to his royal master. When Pallavamalla was besieged in Nandipura by the Dramiḷa princes, Udayachandra came to his rescue and killed with his own hand the Pallava king Chitramāya and others (l. 46 ff.). The name Chitramāya sounds more like a biruda than a real name. Thus the ancient Pallava king Narasiṁha had the biruda Amēyamāya,⁹ and Rājasiṁha that of Māyāchāra.¹⁰ It is not improbable that the Dramiḷa princes whose leader was Chitramāya, were the relations and followers of Nandivarman’s predecessor Paramēśvaravarman II. and that they had to be overcome by force, before Nandivarman could establish himself on the throne. Further, Udayachandra is said to have bestowed the kingdom many times on Nandivarman by his victories at Nimba[vana], Chūtavana, Śaṁkaragrāma, Nellūr, Nelvēli, Śūṟāvaṛundūr, etc. (l. 48 ff.). Of these localities, Nellūr is the head-quarter station of the present Nellore district. Another of them, Nelvēli, is mentioned a second time immediately after, as the place near which Udayachandra killed the Śabara king Udayana (l. 52). The Śabaras are generally identified with the modern Sauras, a hill-tribe in the Gañjām and Vizagapatam districts. As, however, the different names of savage tribes are often treated as synonyms by Sanskrit writers, and as the Tamil name Nelvēli cannot possibly be located in the Telugu districts, it may be that the author of the inscription is referring to one of the hill-tribes of the Tamil country, and that Nelvēli is meant for the modern Tinnevelly.¹¹ An additional argument in favour of this view is that, immediately after the description of the war with the Śabaras, the author refers to Udayachandra’s achievements “in the Northern region also.” He there pursued and defeated the Nishāda chief Pṛithivivyāghra, who was performing an Aśvamēdha, and drove him out of the district of Vishṇurāja, which he subjected to the Pallava king (l. 55 ff.). Nishāda is, like Śabara, one of the words by which Sanskrit writers designate savage tribes. The district of Vishṇurāja, which was situated to the north of the Pallava country, can be identified with certainty. As Nandivarman was a contemporary of the Western Chalukya king Vikramāditya II. who reigned from A.D. 733-34 to 746-47,¹² he was also a contemporary of the Eastern Chalukya king Vishṇuvardhana III. whose reign is placed by Dr. Fleet between A.D. 709 and 746.¹³ He is evidently the Vishṇurāja of the Udayēndiram plates,¹⁴ and his district (vishaya) is the country of Vēṅgī, over which the Eastern Chalukyas ruled. The last two items in the list of Udayachandra’s deeds are, that he destroyed the fort of Kāḷidurga,¹⁵ and that he defeated the Pāṇḍya army at the village of Maṇṇaikuḍi (l. 59 ff.).

The grant which was made by Nandivarman Pallavamalla at the request of Udayachandra, consisted of the village of Kumāramaṅgala-Veḷḷaṭṭūr, which belonged to the district called Paśchimāśrayanadī-vishaya, and of two water-levers (jala-yantra) in the neighbouring village of Koṟṟagrāma, which appear to have been added in order to supply the former village with means of irrigation. As in the case of other grants, the original name of the village was changed into Udayachandramaṅgalam in commemoration of Udayachandra, at whose instance the donation was made (l. 62 ff.). The description of the boundaries of Udayachandramaṅgalam is given in great detail (l. 65 ff.). Among the boundaries we find, in the east, a small river; in the south, the temple of Koṟṟagrāma, the same village, a portion of which had been included in the granted village; in the north, the village of Kāñchidvāra, which, in its Tamil form Kāñchivāyil, is referred to in line 107 of the present inscription, and in another copper-plate grant from Udayēndiram;¹⁶ and in the north-east, the river Kshīranadī, the Tamil name of which is Pālāṟu. As the modern village of Udayēndiram is situated on the Pālāṟu river; as the original of the present inscription is preserved, and was most probably discovered, at Udayēndiram; and as the Tamil name Udayēndiram bears a close resemblance to the Sanskrit name Udayachandramaṅgalam, and still more so to the forms Udayēnduchaturvēdimaṅgalam and Udayēndumaṅgalam, which occur in two other Udayēndiram grants,¹⁷—there is no doubt that Mr. Le Fanu is correct in identifying the granted village of Udayachandramaṅgalam with the modern Udayēndiram.¹⁸ This village is now situated on the northern bank of the Pālāṟu, while Udayachandramaṅgalam is said to have been bounded by the Kshīranadī on the north-east, and by an unnamed small river on the east. It must be therefore assumed that either, as Mr. Le Fanu suggests, the Pālāṟu has changed its bed, or that the name Udayēndiram has travelled across the river in the course of the past eleven centuries. Paśchim-āśrayanadī-vishaya, the name of the district to which the granted village belonged, is a literal Sanskrit translation of the Tamil territorial term Mēl-Aḍaiyāṟu-nāḍu, which, according to another Udayēndiram grant (No. 76 below), was a subdivision of the district of Paḍuvūr-kōṭṭam.

The remainder of the prose portion enumerates the Brāhmaṇa donees (l. 75 ff.), who, according to line 64, were one hundred and eight in number. The actual number of the donees is, however, sixty-three, and that of the shares one hundred and thirty-three. This discrepancy is a third point which suggests that the inscription may be a forgery.

Of the two concluding verses, the first (v. 7) refers to the race of Pūchān, and the second (v. 8) informs us that the inscription,—which, like the Kūram and Kaśākūḍi inscriptions,¹⁹ is styled a eulogy (praśasti, ll. 101 and 105),—was composed by the poet Paramēśvara, who also received one of the shares of the granted village (l. 101 f.).

The Tamil endorsement (l. 105 ff.) is dated in the 26th year of the reign of Madiraikoṇḍa Kō-Parakēsarivarman, i.e., of the Chōḷa king Parāntaka I.,²⁰ and records that the villagers of Udayachandramaṅgalam agreed with those of the neighbouring village of Kāñchivāyil,²¹ which was also called Igaṉmaṟaimaṅgalam, to form one village of the two. Another copy of the Tamil endorsement has been added on the first, originally blank side of the first plate of another Udayēndiram grant.²²

Languages: Sanskrit, Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0074.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: This short inscription is engraved on a pillar in the south-east corner of the veranda which surrounds the shrine of the Ujjīvanātha temple at Uyyakkoṇḍāṉ-Tirumalai, a village 3 miles west of Trichinopoly. It records the gift of a perpetual lamp in the 34th year of the reign of Madirai-koṇḍa Kō-Parakēsarivarman, i.e., of the Chōḷa king Parāntaka I.¹ The donor was Pirāntakaṉ-Mādēvaḍigaḷār, a queen of Pirāntakaṉ-Kaṇḍarādittadēvar. The only king with a similar name, of whom we know, is Gaṇḍarādityavarman, the second son of Parāntaka I.² As the inscription belongs to the time of Parāntaka I. himself, and as it prefixes the word Pirāntakaṉ to the name of Kaṇḍarādittadēvar,³ it is evident that Gaṇḍarādityavarman, the son of Parāntaka I., is actually meant here. The name Parāntaka also forms the first member of the name of the queen of Kaṇḍarādittadēvar; Pirāntakaṉ-Mādēv-aḍigaḷār probably means ‘the devotee (of the temple) of Mahādēva, (founded by) Parāntaka (I.).’

The hitberto published inscriptions of Parāntaka I. are dated in the 13th,⁴ 15th,⁵ 24th⁶ and 26th⁷ years of his reign. The latest sure date hitherto found is the 40th year in an inscription of the Pañchanadēśvara temple at Tiruvaiyāṟu.⁸

The large Leyden grant (l. 48 ff.) states that Gaṇḍarādityavarman, the second son of Parāntaka I., “founded, for the sake (of bliss) in another (world), a large village, (called) by his own name, in the country on the northern bank of Kavēra’s daughter (i.e., the Kāvērī river).” This village appears to be identical with Gaṇḍarāditya-chaturvēdimaṅgalam, which is mentioned in several Tanjore inscriptions⁹ as belonging to a district on the northern bank (of the Kāvērī), and with the modern Kaṇḍarādityam in the Uḍaiyārpāḷaiyam tālluqa.¹⁰ The fifth of the nine Śaiva hymns known as Tiruviśaippā was composed by Kaṇḍarādittaṉ, who calls himself ‘king of the people of Tañjai,’ i.e., Tanjore, and must be accordingly identified with the Chōḷa king Gaṇḍarādityavarman.¹¹ The carpenter Kaṇḍarāditta-Perundachchaṉ in No. 66, paragraph 505, is apparently named after Gaṇḍarādityavarman, the grand-uncle of the then reigning king Rājarājadēva.

According to the subjoined inscription, the ancient name of Uyyakkoṇḍāṉ-Tirumalai was Nandipanmamaṅgalam, which suggests that the place may have been founded by one of the Pallava kings named Nandivarman. The temple was called Tirukkaṟkuḍi-Paramēśvara. This enables us to identify it with Kaṟkuḍi, a shrine which is referred to in the Periyapurāṇam as situated in the Chōḷa country to the south of the Kāvērī river.

Language: Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0075.

Emmanuel Francis.

Summary: The subjoined inscription was first made known by the Rev. T.Foulkes in the Manual of the Salem District, Vol. II, p. 369 ff. It is engraved on one of the five sets of copper-plates, which appear to have been discovered at Udayēndiram in A.D. 1850 and are now in the possession of the Dharmakartā of the Saundararāja-Perumāḷ temple at Udayēndiram.¹ I owe the opportunity of using the original plates to the courtesy of Mr. F.A.Nicholson, I.C.S.

The copper-plates are seven in number. They measure about 8(3/4) to 8(7/8) by 3(1/4) inches. The edges of each plate are raised into rims for the protection of the writing, which is in very good preservation. The plates are strung on a copper ring, which had been already cut when Mr. Foulkes examined the plates. The ring is about (1/2) inch thick and measures about 5(1/4) inches in diameter. Its ends are soldered into the lower portion of a flower, which bears on its expanded petals a circular seal of about 2(1/8) inches in diameter. This seal, which I have figured in the Epigraphia Indica (Vol. III, p. 104, No. 4 of the Plate), bears, in relief, a bull couchant which faces the proper right and is flanked by two ornamented lampstands. Above the bull are an indistinct figure (perhaps a squatting male person) and a crescent, and above these a parasol between two chaurīs. Below the bull is the Grantha legend Prabhumēru. From the Udayēndiram plates of the Bāṇa king Vikramāditya II.² we learn that his great-grandfather had the name or surname Prabhumēru. The occurrence of this name on the seal of the subjoined grant suggests that the Gaṅga king Pṛithivīpati II. adopted a Bāṇa biruda and placed it on his seal when the Bāṇa kingdom was bestowed on him by the Chōḷa king Parāntaka I. As, however, the seal-ring had been already cut when Mr. Foulkes examined the plates, the possibility remains that, as in the case of the inscription No. 74,³ the present seal may have originally belonged to another set of plates, perhaps to those of Vikramāditya II.⁴

The first five plates bear 28 Sanskrit verses in the Grantha alphabet. The alphabet and language of the two last plates (and of a portion of the last line of plate Vb) is Tamil. A few Tamil letters are used in the middle of the Sanskrit portion, viz., ḻi of Vaimbalguṛi in line 42, ṟam of Śrīpuṟambiya in line 45, and ṟi of Paṟivi in line 62. A few words in Sanskrit prose and Grantha characters occur at the beginning of plate I and at the end of plate VII (svasti śri, l. 1, and ōn namō Nārāyaṇāya, l. 101).

The Sanskrit portion opens with invocations of Vishṇu and Śiva (verses 1 and 2). The next few verses (3 to 11) contain a genealogy of the Chōḷa king Parāntaka I. Then follows a genealogy of the Gaṅga-Bāṇa king Pṛithivīpati II. surnamed Hastimalla (vv. 12 to 23), and the information that, with the permission of his sovereign Parakēsarin or Parāntaka I., he granted the village of Kaḍaikkōṭṭūr to the village of Udayēnduchaturvēdimaṅgalam (vv. 24 to 26). Excluded from the grant was certain land which belonged to the Digambara Jainas (v. 27 f. and l. 97 f.). The Tamil portion contains a minute description of the boundaries of Kaḍaikkōṭṭūr and adds that the grant was made by Śembiyaṉ-Māvalivāṇarāya (i.e., the Gaṅga-Bāṇa king Pṛithivīpati II.) in the 15th year of the reign of Madirai-koṇḍa Kō-Parakēsarivarman (i.e., the Chōḷa king Parāntaka I.), and that the granted village was clubbed together with Udyaśandiramaṅgalam into one village, called Vīranārāyaṇachchēri in commemoration of Parāntaka’s surname Vīranārāyaṇa.

The Chōḷa genealogy (vv. 3 to 11) may be subdivided into three portions, viz., mythical ancestors, ancient Chōḷa kings, and direct predecessors of Parāntaka I. The mythical ancestors (v. 3) are Brahmā, Marīchi, Kāśyapa, the Sun, Rudrajit, Chandrajit and Śibi. The four first of these are named in the same order in the Udayēndiram plates of Vīra-Chōḷa⁵ and in the Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi;⁶ in the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā,⁷ Marīchi is placed after Kāśyapa. Śibi is mentioned by name in the large Leyden grant (l. 13) and alluded to in the Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi (viii. 13) and in the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā (ll. 20 to 22).

The ancient Chōḷa kings to whom the subjoined inscription refers (v. 4), are Kōkkiḷḷi, Chōḷa, Karikāla and Kōchchaṅkaṇ.⁸ The Leyden grant mentions the same persons in different order, viz., Chōḷa (l. 17), Karikāla (l. 24), Kōchchaṅkaṇṇān⁹ (l. 25) and Kōkkiḷḷi (l. 26). The Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi alludes first to Kōkkiḷḷi as having wedded a Nāga princess (viii. 18), then to Kōchcheṅgaṇ as contemporary of the poet Poygai (ibid.), and last to Karikāla as having built embankments along the Kāvērī river (viii. 20), while the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā alludes first to Kōkkiḷḷi (l. 19 f.), then to Karikāla (l. 26), and last to Kōchcheṅgaṇ (l. 27 f.). It will be observed that each of the four documents which record the names and achievements of these ancient Chōḷa kings, enumerates them in different order. One of the four kings, Kōkkiḷḷi, can hardly be considered a historical person, as he is credited with having entered a subterraneous cave and there to have contracted marriage with a serpent princess,¹⁰ and as the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā places him before the two mythical kings Śibi and Kavēra; and the king Chōḷa of the Udayēndiram plates and of the Leyden grant is nothing more than a personification of the Chōḷa dynasty,—just as Pallava, the supposed son of the hero Aśvatthāman and founder of the Pallava race.¹¹

The two remaining kings, Kōchcheṅgaṇ and Karikāla, are the heroes of two Tamil poems, the Kaḷavaṛi by Poygaiyār and the Paṭṭinappālai by Rudraṅgaṇṇaṉār. These two poems must be considerably more ancient than the Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi, which belongs to the time of Kulōttuṅga I. (A.D. 1063 to 1112), because the author of this poem (viii. 18 and 21) believed them to be actually composed before the time of Parāntaka I. and during the very reigns of Kōchcheṅgaṇ and Karikāla. While the Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi places Kōchcheṅgaṇ before Karikāla, who is represented as having inscribed on Mount Mēru the history of his predecessors, and among them of Kōchcheṅgaṇ (viii. 19), the Leyden grant calls Kōchcheṅgaṇ a descendant of Karikāla, and the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā refers to the two kings in the same order. The Leyden grant even represents the mythical king Kōkkiḷḷi as a descendant of Kōchcheṅgaṇ. A comparison of these conflicting statements shows that, at the time of the composition of the three documents referred to, no tradition remained regarding the order in which Kōchcheṅgaṇ and Karikāla succeeded each other. Probably their names were only known from ancient Tamil panegyrics of the same type as the Kaḷavaṛi and the Paṭṭiṉappālai. It would be a mistake to treat them as actual ancestors of that Chōḷa dynasty whose epigraphical records have come down to us. They must rather be considered as two representatives of extinct dynasties of the Chōḷa country, whose names had survived in Tamil literature either by chance or on account of their specially marked achievements.

To Karikāla the Leyden grant (l. 24 f.) attributes the building of embankments along the Kāvērī river. The same act is alluded to in the Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi and the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā. The Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi (viii. 21) adds that he paid 1,600,000 gold pieces to the author of the Paṭṭiṉappālai. According to the Porunarāṟṟuppaḍai, a poem by Muḍattāmakkaṇṇiyār,¹² the name of the king’s father was Iḷañjēṭcheṉṉi. The king himself is there called Karigāl, i.e., ‘Black-leg’ or ‘Elephant-leg,’¹³ while the Sanskritised form of his name, Karikāla, would mean ‘the death to elephants.’ He is said to have defeated the Chēra and Pāṇḍya kings in a battle fought at Veṇṇil.¹⁴ According to the Śilappadigāram,¹⁵ his capital was Kāvirippūmbaṭṭiṉam.¹⁶ In one of his interesting contributions to the history of ancient Tamil literature,¹⁷ the Honourable P.Coomaraswamy allots Karikāla to the first century A.D. This opinion is based on the fact that the commentaries on the Śilappadigāram represent Karikāla as the maternal grandfather of the Chēra king Śeṅguṭṭuvaṉ, a contemporary of Gajabāhu of Ceylon. Mr. Coomaraswamy identifies the latter with Gajabāhu I., who, according to the Mahāvaṁsa, reigned from A.D. 113 to 135. With due respect to Mr. Coomaraswamy’s sagacity, I am not prepared to accept this view, unless the identity of the two Gajabāhus is not only supported by the mere identity of the name, but proved by internal reasons, and until the chronology of the earlier history of Ceylon has been subjected to a critical examination.

The last of the four ancient Chōḷa kings to whom the subjoined inscription refers, is Kōchcheṅgaṇ, i.e., ‘king Red-eye.’ Poygaiyār’s poem Kaḷavaṛi, which has been translated into English by Mr. Kanakasabhai Pillai,¹⁸ describes the battle of Kaṛumalam, in which Śeṅgaṇ defeated and captured a Chēra king. The Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi and the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā state that the prisoner was set at liberty by the king, after the Kaḷavaṛi had been recited in the presence of the latter. The Leyden grant (l. 26) calls him “a bee at the lotus feet of Śaṁbhu (Śiva).”¹⁹ By this it alludes to the fact that Śeṅgaṇ was considered as one of the sixty-three devotees of Śiva.²⁰ The Periyapurāṇam calls him the son of the Chōḷa king Śubhadēva by Kamalavatī, and attributes to him the foundation of the Jambukēśvara temple.²¹ His name is mentioned by two of the authors of the Dēvāram: Sundaramūrti invokes him in the Tiruttoṇḍattogai,²² and refers to a temple which Kōchcheṅgaṇāṉ had built at Naṉṉilam;²³ and Tiruñāṉaśambandar mentions two other temples which the Chōḷa king Śeyyagaṇ²⁴ had built at Ambar²⁵ and at Vaigal.²⁶ The last two references prove that Śeṅgaṇ must have lived before the 7th century, to which, as shown by Mr. Venkayya,²⁷ Tiruñāṉaśambandar belongs. Finally, Mr. Venkayya²⁸ has found that the Nālāyiraprabandham speaks of a visit of the Chōḷa king Kōchcheṅgaṇāṉ to the Vishṇu temple at Tirunaṟaiyūr.²⁹

Verses 4 and 5 of the Udayēndiram plates and lines 28 to 31 of the large Leyden grant mention the names of the grandfather and father of Parāntaka I., Vijayālaya and Āditya I. Both kings are described in general terms, and no special deeds or events are noticed in connection with them. It may be concluded from this that they were insignificant princes, and that Parāntaka I. was the actual founder of the Chōḷa power. The king during whose reign the present grant was issued, bore various names. The Leyden grant (ll. 32 and 40) calls him Parāntaka. The same name occurs in verses 21 and 25 of the Udayēndiram plates. He was also called Vīranārāyaṇa, a name which occurs in verse 6, and which is presupposed by Vīranārāyaṇachchēri, as the granted village was termed after the name of “His Majesty” (l. 73 f.). Another name of his was Parakēsarin (v. 24), which forms part of his Tamil designation Madirai-koṇḍa Kō-Parakēsarivarman (l. 71), i.e., ‘king Parakēsarivarman who took Madirai (Madhurā).’ The conquest of Madhurā and the defeat of its ruler, the Pāṇḍya king Rājasiṁha, is referred to in verses 9 and 11. Parāntaka I. is also reported to have repulsed an army of the king of Laṅkā (Ceylon) and to have earned by this feat the surname Saṁgrāmarāghava (v. 10). Hence he calls himself ‘Kō-Parakēsarivarman who took Madirai (i.e., Madhurā) and Īṛam (i.e., Ceylon)’ in some of his inscriptions.³⁰ He defeated, among others, the Vaidumba king,³¹ “uprooted by force two lords of the Bāṇa kings” (v. 9), and conferred the dignity of “lord of the Bāṇas” on the Gaṅga king Pṛithivīpati II. (v. 21). His queen was the daughter of a king of Kēraḷa (v. 8). The Leyden grant (l. 35 f.) reports that “(this) banner of the race of the Sun covered the temple of Śiva at Vyāghrāgrahāra with pure gold, brought from all regions, subdued by the power of his own arm.” As stated before,³² this verse refers to the gilding of the Kanakasabhā or ‘Golden Hall’ at Chidambaram. Mr. P. Sundaram Pillai has pointed out that the expression ‘Golden Hall’ (Poṉṉambalam) occurs already in the Dēvāram of Appar (alias Tirunāvukkaraiyar), the elder contemporary of Tiruñāṉaśambandar.³³ Consequently, it seems that Parāntaka I. did not gild the Chidambaram temple for the first time, but that he only re-gilded it. Mr. Sundaram adds that “Umāpati Śivāchārya, to whose statements we are bound to accord some consideration, ascribes, in the 14th century, the building of the Golden Hall and the town (Chidambaram) itself to a certain Hiraṇyavarman of immemorial antiquity.” Though the name Hiraṇyavarman actually occurs among the Pallava kings of Kāñchī,³⁴ it looks as if his alleged connection with the Golden Hall were only due to the circumstance that the word hiraṇya, ‘gold,’ happens to be a portion of his name. The gilding, or rather re-gilding, of the Chidambaram temple by Parāntaka I. is alluded to in the Vikkirama-Śōṛaṉ-Ulā (ll. 30 to 32). The Kaliṅgattu-Paraṇi (viii. 23) mentions his conquest of Ceylon and Madhurā. The same two conquests and the gilding of the Chidambaram temple are referred to in a hymn by Gaṇḍarāditya, the second son of Parāntaka I.³⁵ According to this hymn, the capital of Parāntaka I. was Kōṛi,³⁶ i.e., Uṟaiyūr, now a suburb of Trichinopoly.³⁷ The present inscription is dated in the 15th year of his reign (l. 71 f.). A list of other inscriptions of his was given on page 374 above.

The genealogy of the Chōḷa king Parāntaka I. is followed by an account of the ancestors of his feudatory Pṛithivīpati II. surnamed Hastimalla (vv. 12 to 23). This passage opens with a verse (12) glorifying the Gaṅga family, which is said to have had for its ancestor the sage Kaṇva of the race of Kāśyapa³⁸ and to have “obtained increase through the might of Siṁhanandin.”³⁹ As in the copper-plate grants of the Western Gaṅgas, the first king of the Gaṅga dynasty is stated to have been Koṅkaṇi, who resided at Kuvaḷālapura, the modern Kōlār,⁴⁰ “who was anointed to the conquest of the Bāṇa country,”⁴¹ and who, in his youth, accomplished the feat of splitting in two a huge stone pillar with a single stroke of his sword.⁴² The device on his banner is said to have been a swan (sitapiñchha, v. 14). To the period between this mythical ancestor and the great-grandfather of Pṛithivīpati II. the inscription (v. 15) allots the reigns of Vishṇugōpa, Hari, Mādhava, Durvinīta, Bhūvikrama, and “other kings” of Koṅkaṇi’s lineage. The remainder of the genealogical portion of the inscription supplies the following pedigree of the Gaṅga kings: Śivamāra. Pṛithivīpati I. surnamed Aparājita. Mārasiṁha. Pṛithivīpati II. surnamed Hastimalla.

Pṛithivīpati I. fought a battle at Vaimbalguṛi (v. 17) and lost his life in a battle with the Pāṇḍya king Varaguṇa at Śrīpuṟambiya (v. 18). Śrīpuṟambiya has to be identified with the village of Tiruppirambiyam near Kumbhakōṇam.⁴³ Mr. Venkayya has shown that this place is mentioned in the Dēvāram of Tiruñāṉaśambandar and Sundaramūrti, and that king Varaguṇa-Pāṇḍya is referred to in the Tiruviḷaiyāḍalpurāṇam.⁴⁴

Pṛithivīpati II. was a dependent of Parāntaka I. and received from him the dignity of ‘lord of the Bāṇas’ (v. 21), who had been conquered by the Chōḷa king (v. 9). He defeated the Hill-chiefs (Girīndra)⁴⁵ and the Pallavas (v. 23) and bore the titles ‘lord of Paṟivipurī’ and ‘lord of Nandi,’ i.e., of the Nandidurga hill near Bangalore. His banner bore the device of a black-buck, his crest was a bull, and his drum was called Paiśācha (v. 24). In the Tamil portion of the inscription, Pṛithivīpati II. is referred to under the title Śembiyaṉ-Māvalivāṇarāya (ll. 72 and 101). The second part of this name consists of Māvali, the Tamil form of Mahābali, i.e., ‘the great Bali,’ who is considered as the ancestor of the Bāṇa kings,⁴⁶ and Vāṇarāya, i.e., Bāṇarāja or ‘king of the Bāṇas.’ The first part of the name, Śembiyaṉ, is one of the titles of the Chōḷa kings. The whole surname appears to mean: ‘(he who was appointed) Mahābali-Bāṇarāja (by) the Chōḷa king.’

According to verse 16, the Gaṅga king Pṛithivīpati I. rendered assistance to two chiefs named Iriga and Nāgadanta, the sons of king Diṇḍi, and defended the former of these two against king Amōghavarsha. This king can be safely identified in the following manner. The Chōḷa king Rājarāja ascended the throne in A.D. 984-85;⁴⁷ Rājarāja’s granduncle Rājāditya was slain by the Gaṅga king Būtuga, who was a feudatory of the Rāshṭrakūṭa king Kṛishṇa III., before A.D. 949-50;⁴⁸ Rājāditya’s father Parāntaka I., who reigned at least 40 years,⁴⁹ may accordingly be placed about A.D. 900 to 940. As Parāntaka I. was a contemporary of the Gaṅga king Pṛithivīpati II.,—Amōghavarsha, the contemporary of Pṛithivīpati I., must be identical with the Rāshṭrakūṭa king Amōghavarsha I., who reigned from A.D. 814-15 to 876-78.⁵⁰ Accordingly Mārasiṁha, the son of Pṛithivīpati I., must have reigned about A.D. 878 to 900, and must be distinct from another Mārasiṁha, who reigned from A.D. 963-64 to 974-75.⁵¹

Of the localities mentioned in the grant proper, Udayēndu-chaturvēdimaṅgalam (v. 26) and Udayaśandiramaṅgalam (the Tamil spelling of Udayachandramaṅgalam, ll. 74 and 99 f.) are two different forms of the name of the modern village of Udayēndiram, where the plates were found.⁵² In mentioning the name Udayachandramaṅgalam, the subjoined inscription presupposes the existence of the lost original of the Udayēndiram plates of Nandivarman Pallavamalla (No. 74), which record the foundation of that village in honour of the general Udayachandra.⁵³ The village granted, Kaḍaikkōṭṭūr, must have been situated close to Udayēndiram, because it was clubbed together with the latter into one village, called Vīranārāyaṇachchēri. Kaḍaikkōṭṭūr was bounded on the south-east and north by the Pālāṟu river (ll. 78 and 96), which passed through the village near the eastern boundary of the latter (l. 75). The village belonged to Mēl-Aḍaiyāṟu-nāḍu, a subdivision of the district of Paḍuvūr-kōṭṭam (l. 73 f.).⁵⁴ As I have already stated on page 365, Mēl-Aḍaiyāṟu-nāḍu⁵⁵ is the Tamil equivalent of Paśchimāśrayanadī-vishaya, the Sanskrit name of the district to which Udayēndiram belonged in the time of Nandivarman Pallavamalla.

Languages: Sanskrit, Tamil.

Repository: South Indian Inscriptions (Original Edition) (south-indian-inscriptions).

DHARMA_INSSIIv02p0i0076.