MISCELLANEOUS

version of the same grant being written in the Telugu language. It is probably the same grants that is also incised on a stone set up at Kaṇṇanūr, close to Samayavaram (No. 161 of 1936-37) wherein the purpose of the gift is stated to be the maintenance of a mosque. In the Epigraphical Report of that year (para. 64) a list of Vijayanagara overlords mentioned in the grants of the Madura Nāyaka rulers is given down to Śaka 1651 in the reign of Srīraṅgarāya. But the present inscription is dated 4 years later and in the reign of a Veṅkaṭadēva-Mahārāya. A stone inscription of the same queen was also secured from Śrīraṅgam (No. 101), which is engraved on a beam of a polished stone maṇḍapa on the west side of the second prākāra of the Raṅganātha temple. It is dated in Ananda, corresponding to Śaka 1656, a year subsequent to the copper-plate grant noticed above, and states that the maṇḍapa was the gift of the queen.

Tupākula Rāmakṛishṇappa-Nāyaka.
   68. On the pillars of the maṇḍapa in the east side of the second prākāra in the Raṅganātha temple at Srīraṅgam are four bilingual inscriptions (Nos. 107-110) in Telugu and Tamil, one of which (No. 108) mentions a certain Rāmakṛishṇappa-Nāyaka, son of Tupākula Periya Rāmabhadra-Nāyaka. The other inscriptions mention his wife (paṭṭapudēvī) Chinna-Maṅgamma (No. 109), his mother Nīlavēṇiyamma (No. 107) and his vāśal-pradhāni Muttu-Mudaliyār (No. 110). From their writing the inscriptions may be assigned to the 17th century A.D. This Rāmakṛishṇappa seems to have been a chief of some celebrity of the period and may perhaps be identified with Tuppākki Kṛishṇa-Nāyaka, the donor of a gift to the temple at Tiruvellore in Śaka 1516 (Rangachari’s Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, p. 467, No.1196). The Daḷavāy Agarāharam plates of Ativīrarāma-Pāṇḍya of Śaka 1517, give the name of the vijñapti of the grant as Rāmakrishṇappa-Nāyaka (Trav. Arch. Series., Vol. I, p. 144), who is however called the son of one Haridāsa, but his identity with the chief mentioned in the Śrīraṅgam inscription cannot be posited at present.

Persian inscriptions at Poonamalle and Gingee.
   69. A Persian inscription engraved on a slab set up in a mosque at Poona- mallee near Madras was copied during the year (No. 303). On the same slab is also engraved a Telugu version of the same record (No. 304). The Persian version was sent for decipherment along with the Telugu one to Mr. G. Yazdani who has since published both the versions in Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica for 1937-38, pp. 52 ff. It records that the mosque was built and completed by Rustam, son of Dhu’lfiqar of Astrābād, a servant of Nawab Jumlat-ul-Mulkī Mīr Muhammad Saīd (Mir Jumla) in the reign of Sultān Abdulla Quṭb Shāh. In the margin of this stone in slightly smaller characters are incised two Persian couplets which are however much obliterated. From the portion now available it can be gathered that the mosque was raised after demolishing a temple belonging to the ‘ infidels ’. This is confirmed by the structure of the mosque of which the basement contains fragmentary Chōḷa records in Tamil characters of about the 10th century A.D., thus indicating its Hindu character. In the Telugu version of the inscription (No. 304) this Rustam is given the additional name of Sujāyita Āsāri and is called the Havaldāru of the fort at Poonamalle and the agent of Hazarati Nawābu Sāhēbulugāru who was himself the agent of Hazarati Ālampanna Sultānu Abdulla Quṭubu Saharājugāru, ‘ the lord of Gōlkoṇḍa ’. There is a slight discrepancy of a week in the citation of the dates in the two versions, the Persian inscription being dated in 20 Shawwāl 1063 H., corresponding to 3rd September 1653 A.D., while the Telugu portion which is engraved below the Persian inscription gives an anterior date, viz., Śaka 1578 (wrong for 1575) Vijaya, Bhādrapada, śu. 13, corresponding to 26th August 1653 A.D.
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   Gingee in the South Arcot district which is famous for its strong rock fortresses is known to have passed through various vicissitudes and to have been in the middle of the 17th century in the hands of the Bijapur Sultans who seem to have strengthened its fortifications. A Persian inscription engraved on a slab which is built into a bastion of the fort was copied during the year (No. 309). It states that this was built in the year 1063 H. corresponding to A.D. 1653 by a certain Husaini who must have been an officer in charge of the locality. Two later inscriptions on slabs, one built into the mosque and the other near a water-trough close by (Nos. 307 and 308) in the mosque and are of the 18th century A.D. and are dated in 1130 H. (1718 A.D.) and 1135 H. (1723 A.D.), during the period when it was under the Moghul rulers. They

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