South Indian Inscriptions

PART II

Ikhāku king Vāsiṭhiputa Ehuvula Chatamula.
  The earliest record in the year’s collection comes from Nāgārjunakoṇḍa in the Guntur district (No. 452) and is engraved on a white marble pillar now kept in the Archaeological Museum of the place. It is in Brāhmī characters of about the 3rd century A.D. and is dated in the 6th year of the Ikhāku king Vāsiṭhīputa Ehuvuḷa Chātamūla. This inscription records the foundation of a [stone maṇḍapa] for the benefit of the Ariya-saṅgha (Ārya-saṅgha), versed in the Mahānikāya and belonging to the Buddhist sect Aparamahāvinasēliya of Vijayapura in Siripavata, by and upāsaka named Chaṁḍasiri for the merit of his parents and descendants. This adds one more number to the few inscriptions of this king found in the locality.

Birudas of the Adiyamān chief at Nāmakkal.
   2. Next in point of time come two labels in Pallaya-Grantha characters of the 7th century A.D. found at Nāmakkal in the Salem district (Nos. 328and 329). One of them is engraved on a rock near the spring to the right of the Raṅga- nātha cave-temple and reads ‘Manōmaya’ and the other is found in the Lakshmīnarasiṁha cave-temple and gives th birudas’ ‘Śrīdhara’ and ‘Śilibhṛitam’. All these three are apparently birudas or surnames of the Adiyamān chief in whose time the rock-cut temple of Raṅganātha called the ‘Adiyēndra-Vishṇugṛiha’ came into existence, as testified to by long Sanskrit inscription found in it (No.7 of 1906).

Some archaic inscriptions of the 7th-9th centuries A.D. in the Telugu districts.
   3. A few inscriptions in archaic characters of the 7th-9th centuries A.D. have been secured from the Cuddapah, Guntur and Nellore districts. The earliest of these is a damaged epigraph (No. 402) of about the 7th century A.D. from Nandimaṇḍalam in the Cuddapah district giving the name ‘Tribhuvanā-Siṅgaṁbu’, probably of a local chief. On the pillar containing this inscription is another record (No. 401) in later characters, which mentions Ṭhākura Sattikomāra, probably a religious teacher. Some other inscriptions of this period recording names come from Gōḷi in the Guntur district and read ‘Puṇyalābhuṇḍu’ (No. 450), ‘Ajaḷullatanru’, ‘Dayāchittunru’ and ‘Nagapriyunru’ (No. 451).

   An inscription in characters of about the 9th century A.D. (No. 445) was copied at Nalajanampāḍu in the Nellore district at the suggestion of the Director General of Archaeology for Mr. Master of the Bombay Civil Service (retired). This has been published in the Nellore Inscriptions, Vol. II, pp. 676-77, but the readings given there are not satisfactory. The inscription records an endowment by Bādi-rāju, son of Bādi-rāju, who bears the birudas ‘Paramamāhēśvara’, ‘Paramēśvar’ and ‘Pellavāditya’ and bears the birudas ‘ Paramamāhēśvara’, Bhagavad-Arhata Parama-bhaṭṭāraka. Judging from the epithet ‘Pallavāditya’ assumed by his father, the donor might be taken to be a scion of the Pallava family.

An early labelled Dvarapala image from Beawada.
   A huge stone image of a dvārapālaka exhibiting early bold workmanship was recently acquired by the Madras Museum from Bezwada in the Kistna district. On the back of it is an inscription of two lines in Telugu characters of about the 9th century A.D. (No. 447) which gives the names ‘ Veṁginātha Vaḷaṇḍu’ and above it ‘Guṇḍaya ‘ indicating probably the donor and sculptor respectively of the image.