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South
Indian Inscriptions |
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Part
- I
Miscellaneous
Inscriptions From the Tamil Country
III.-
Inscriptions in the Pasupatisvara temple at Karuvur
No.
20 south wall of the Pasupatisvara temple
No.
21 to 22 south wall of the shrine of the goddess
No.
23 to 26 outside of the second prakara, left & right of entrance
The
town of Karuvur, which I visited in 1890, is the head-quarters of a
taluka of the Coimbatore district and a station on the Railway line
from Erode (Irodu) to Trichinopoly. It contains a temple of Siva, which is now called
Pasupatisvara. This is
a Sanskrit rendering of the ancient name of the temple, Tiruvanilai,
i.e., âthe holy cow-stable,â which occurs already in
the Devaram and is exclusively used in the subjoined
inscriptions.
The
inscriptions of the Tiruvanilai or Pasupatisvara temple belong to
the time of the Chola king Virarajendra I. (No. 20), Rajendra (Nos.
21 and 22), Kulottunga-Chola III. (Nos. 23 and 24), and Vira-Chola
(No. 26). The two
inscriptions of Kulottunga-Chola III. attribute to Karuvur the
surname of Mudivalangu-Solapuram.
Karuvur in the Coimbatore district has been erroneously
identified by European scholars with another place of the same name,
which is said to have been the capital of the Chera kingdom and is
mentioned as such by Ptolemy.
This other town of Karuvur was also called Vanji and is
perhaps identical with Magodai or Tiruvanjiakkalam near Cranganore
in the Cochin State.
The
ancient name of the tract of country, in which Karuvur is situated,
was Kongu (No. 23). In
the inscriptions of Virarajendra I and Rajendra (nos. 20 to 22).
We find, instead of Kongu, the term Adhirajaraja-mandalam,
and in those of Kulottunga-Chola III. (Nos. 23 and 24)
Sola-Kerala-mandalam. In
an inscription of Vikrama-Chola at Kodumudi occurs the designation
âKongu, alias Vira-Sola-mandalam.â
In the time of Rajaraja I. and Rajendra-Chola I it was
included in Keralantaka-valanadu.
Among the districts of Kongu, the Karuvur inscriptions
mention Vengala-nadu and Tattiyurnadu. To the former belonged Karuvur (Nos. 20, 23 and 24), Pakkur
(No. 20), Kanavadinallur (No. 21), Nelveyappalli or Nelluvayppalli
(Nos. 22 and 26), Punnam (No. 24), Andanur (Nos. 22 and 26),
Karaitturai and Adichchamangalam (No. 26).
In Tattaiyur-nadu were included Mannarai and Keralapalli (No.
23), Tevanappalli and Nombalur (No. 24).
Instead of Tattaiyur-nadu, the inscriptions at Tanjavur and
Somur
use the form Tattaigala-nadu. Another
district of Kongu was Narkaviri-nadu, in which Kodumudi
was situated. According
to an inscription of the Hoysala king Vira-Vallaladeva at Perur near
Coimbatore (No. 569 of
1893), Perur belonged to Perur-nadu, a district of Konga-mandalam.
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