INTRODUCTION
The Koyil, Periya-koyil or the Great
temple of Ranganatha is situated in the island of Srirangam between the
river Kaveri and its main branch Kollidam in the Thiruchirapalli
District of the Tamil Nadu State. Among the Vaishnava centers of
pilgrimage it vies equally with the famous Tirupati of Venkatachala or
Venkatesa, better known in the North as Balaji, and has been eulogized
by almost all the Vaishnava saints or Alvars among whom some lived at
this place and made it the scene of their devotional activities.
Prominent among them were Kulasekhara the Chera king who renounced his
kingdom only to devote his life to the service of this god and settled
down at Srirangam with his daughter Cherakulavalli, and Tirumangaimannan
or Alinadan, the chief who betook to banditry for the sole purpose of
embellishing with the looted money. The lord of Srirangam. He is said
to have looted the golden image of Buddha at the vihara at
Nagapattinam and with that gold renovated certain parts of the temples.
The name of minor Alvars such as Tondaradippodi, Tirupanalvar who was
born at Uraiyur near Srirangam, are also connected with this temple.
Ramanujacharya, the great apostle of the Visishtadvaita Srivaishnavism
spent as many as 60 years of his long life as the administrative head of
this temple and effected many reforms in its internal management.
Kuruttalvar, Parasara-Bhatta, Vedanta-Desika
and a number of other scholars also lived here. Manavala-Mahamuni or
Alagiya-manavala, the Acharya of the Tenkalai –Vaishnava sect is said to
have lived for a long time here giving religious discourses. The saint
is reputed to have stayed at the Pallavarayan-matham in the South Uttira
Street, where an image of his is being worshipped even now. The place
is also associated with the famous Tamil poet Kambar whose Ramayana,
according to tradition received its imprimatur here at the hands of the
literary coteries of his time.
Architecturally the Ranganatha temple may
be classed as the Uttamottama type as it has its full complement of
seven prakaras running round the garbhagriha and has in
addition, separate subsidiary shrines for all the minor
parivaradevatas as prescribed in the agamas. The disposition
of these shrines in the plan however shows variations from the places
prescribed for them in accordance with the Vaikhanasa authorities. This
is perhaps due to later renovations and alterations made knowingly or
unknowingly in successive generations. In fact the temple had undergone
so many alterations at the hands of pious kings of several dynasties and
donors of different generations that it is difficult to distinguish
between its nucleus and its later accretions. The introduction of
images of the Vaishnava-Alvars in shrines which previously contained
images of gods appears also to have been a later innovation made during
the time of Ramanuja and Vedanta-Desika. A shrine of Dhanvantiri , the
god of medicine, which is located in the north side of the fourth
prakara, is a unique feature not met with in any other temple in
South India. A stucco figure of God Narasimha called Eduttakai-alagiyar
depicted as tearing asunder the entrails of the demon king Hiranyakasipu,
figures on the north gopura of the fourth prakara and
provided with a mandapa constructed in front of it, presents a
rare instance of an ornamental image of a gopura acquiring
sanctity in course of time.
Sculpturally the temple does not present
any outstanding features. The image of the main deity in the
garbhagriha is a huge reclining stucco figure with undefined
features; and the gold-plated representation of god Para-Vasudeva
portrayed on the front side of the Vimana over the circular
garbhagribha, is considered very sacred. The numerous mandapas,
prakara walls and gopura that rose up at different periods do
not exhibit any remarkable workmanship, except, in the case of the small
temple of Krishna to the west of the main mandapa at the entrance
leading into the fifth prakara with its outer walls embellished
with ornamental niches containing beautiful sculptures which are
typically fashioned after the Hoysala style, and the
Sheshagiriyanmandapa on the east side of the fifth prakara which
contains a few well-made composite pillars of the type commonly met
with in constructions of the Vijayanagara period namely, the rearing
yali and hoses ridden over by hunting cavaliers piercing tigers with
spears. The unfinished gopura at the south entrance in the
outermost prakara which forms the portals as it were to this
temple city has evoked the admiration of Fergusson by its massive
proportions and if it had only been completed it would have risen up to
a height of nearly 300 feet and would have been a remarkable feat of
engineering unparalled in temple architecture.[1]
Ichnographically the temple offers a wide
scope for study as it possesses an almost complete gallery of all the
images required for worship according to Vaishnavagamas, some of them
attributable to the 12th and 13th centuries.
Unique among these which deserve special mention are a group of ten
images called the Dasamurtis which are taken in procession round the
temple on all important occasions, and Annamurti, the presiding deity of
the temple kitchen. The latter, now somewhat mutilated and kept near
the ghee-troughs in the Ujnal-mandapam is represented by a
two-armed image holding a bolu of (curd-rice) in one hand a kalasa
(containing Payasa) in the other. In the Prabha-mandapa
behind the head are carved the emblems of the sankha and
chakra. The Padma-samhita (ch. XXVIII) describes the Annamurti
image thus:-
Purnendu-bimba-madhyasthe sitapadme
vivasvare!
asmam dhaval-akaram nilakunjitamurdhajam
dukula-kshauma-vasanam balyayogi
vibhushanam!
Kala-dhautamayam patram payasannena
purittam
bibhranam deakshine haste
dadhyodanamathertare!
dhyayed-akshatriyam dhiman japet
tadgata-manasah
A long frieze running the basement of the
Kilimandapa from its northern and right up to the side steps
leading on to it contains a number of panels depicting figures in high
relief in different dance poses. The panels are intercepted at regular
intervals by projecting niches containing stone figures in the round.
Most of these are now missing and the only sculpture now existing seems
to depict Vishnu with four arms, in standing posture. The dance-poses
of these panels are worth detailed study.
The temple is rich also in its paintings.
They are confined to the ceilings of the mandapas or prakaras.
Those on the ceiling of the innermost prakaras of the main temple
are unfortunately blurred with soot while those on the high ceiling of
the prakaras around the shrine of the goddess are peeling off in
flakes although the extant panels are well preserved. They contain
scenes in panels with labels in Telugu describing various puranic
themes. They may be attributed to the Nayaka period.
The most important feature of the temple
with which this volume is concerned is its numerous inscriptions mostly
engraved on its prakara walls, pillars and pilasters, some on
copper-plates in the possession of the temple and yet some more on the
temple jewels and utensils of gold. They represent royal donors of
almost all the dynasties of South India from early Cholas down to the
Marathas of Tanjore and the Nayakas of Madurai, and later still,
during the East India Company days, the prominent philanthropist
Pachchaiyappa quin of the deity repaired in the year Saka 1735(A.D.
1813).
The earliest of the lithic records takes
us back, on grounds of their paleography, to the period of the early
Chola Kings Rajakesarivarman (Aditya I) and Parakesarivarman (Parantaka
I). It is noteworthy that we do not find here any records of the
powerful Pallavas who preceded them although some of them like
Simhavishnu are said to have been devout worhisppers of Vishnu, and
Gunabhara, identified with Mahendravarman who has left to posterity in
the rock-cut cave of the Fort-Rock at Tiruchy the masterly panel of
Vishnu depicted in the form of Ananthasayin. These records (Nos. 1-7)
barring one (No.9) is on a loose slab kept near the temple Museum, are
engraved on the jambs of a well dressed stone doorway of the temple
granary (kottaram or nel-kalanjiyam) in the fourth prakara of the
temple. Their position, so far removed from the present central shrine,
seems to suggest that the original position of the central shrine must
have been somewhere near them or that they were removed and inserted in
their present position during subsequent alternations. Of the two
records of Rajakesarivarman (Aditya I), one (No.2) dated in the 26th
year of his reign registers an endowment of some fold by puttadigal, son
of Karanai Vilupperaraiyar Arivaladigal towards the feeding of four
Brahmanas. By their names the donor and his father appear to be of the
Buddhist or Jain persuasion and it is noteworthy that they figure as
donors in this temple.[2]
The
inscriptions of Parakesarivarman (Parantaka I), although few, range
from his 2nd to the 41st year of reign. No. 3 of
his earliest date i.e. 2nd year of reign calls him by the application Parakesarivarman without the
qualifying epithet Madirai-konda. No.5 refers to the platform raised
for the flag staff (tirukkodi) by Narayanan alias Tennavan
Brahmadhirajan, the Srikaryam of the temple. It may be recalled that
the Anbil plates of Sundara Chola Parantaka II, in giving an account of
the king’s minister Aniruddha-Brahmadhiraja, mention the ministers
father as Narayana and his mother and grandfather Aniruddha as donors of
lamps to the god of Srirangam. It is not unlikely that this Tennavan
Brahmadhirajan is identical with Narayanan, the father of Aniruddha
Brahmadhirajan.
The only inscription (No. 12) of
Uttama-Chola on the pillar in the Chandana mandapa in the second
prakara, and dated in the 15th year of his reign, records
provision for burning a lamp with ghee and Bhimaseni-karpuram, a kind of
camphor, by Sridhara Kumaran, a Malayalan of Iravimangalam. The top of
the pillar itself is scooped out and shaped into the form of a cup to
hold the mixture of ghee camphor for the lamp. This practice of burning
lamps with ghee or oil mixed with camphor is still in vogue at
Tiruvannamalai in the North Arcot District. Even at Srirangam prior to
the advent of electric lights all the lamps in the temple were said to
be lit either with ghee or oil freely mixed with camphor ostensibly, it
is said, to make the ghee or oil for feeding the lamps unfits for human
consumption.
The records of Rajaraja, and his son and
successor Rajendra are few and fragmentary and almost all of them are
confined to the tiers of the basement of what is now known as the
Ottaikkal mandapam at the north-east corner of the Unjalmandapam. Some
of them have flaked off on account of the weathering of the stone and
some are covered over by later constructions. No. 13 mentions the
king’s commander (Senapati) Kuravan who may be identical with the
officer Senapati Kuravan Ulagalandan alias Rajaraja-maharajan
mentioned in the Tanjore inscription of the king and who probably
derived his surname Ulagalandan on account of the important part he must
have played in carrying out the revenue survey during the king’s reign
which furnished the basis for the revenue policy for many years
thereafter. A short but complete record of this king is furnished by an
inscription (No. 19) on a detached pillar now lying in the countryard in
front of the ancient paddy storage rooms. It is dated in his 32nd
regnal year and mentions Sundara Chola alias Rajaraja IIan govelar as
his subordinate, a circumstance that enables us to assign the record to
Rajadhiraja (I) (No.s 23 and 24) on eight pillars of the verandah at the
entrance into the Chakrattalvar shrine, we have the only inscription
(No. 25) of Adhirajendra unfortunately too fragmentary, the stones
containing portions of the record now built into the wall of the passage
at the Nali kettanvasal revealing just some portions of his
prasasti, commencing with Tingaler-malarndu etc., and with its
date lost.
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To Kulottunga I belong the bulk of
inscriptions (Nos 26 to 108) and the majority of them are confirmed to
the walls of the third prakara. They range in date from the 10th
to the 48th year of his reign. An outstanding feature that
most of these inscriptions reveal is the recourse taken to by intending
donors reclaiming vast tracts of land which belonged to the temple and
which had lain under sand for a long time on account of floods. Some
inscriptions specify this period as a hundred years. The donors
purchased plots of this land from the Temple authorized and in turn gave
them away either tax-free or on the basis of deferred assessment over
them for a specified period, stipulating periodic supplies of grain,
flowers, etc., to the temple by the intending purchasers or donees (No.
27 and 55). To mention only a few among such donors Kalingarayar
alias Ponnambalakkuttar of Manaiyil (No. 31) may be identified with
the famous general Naralokavira who held a large fief in Manaiyil and
whose services in the southern campaigns of the king are sung not only
in the Vikramasolan-ula but also praised in a number of laudatory
inscriptions from Chidambaram, Tiruvadi and other places, but who must
be different from Kalingarayar alias Araiyan Garudavahanam who
endowed some money to the temple for the recitation of Tettaruntiral,
a set of hymns composed by Kulasekhara (No. 63), or from Kalingarayar
alias Kiliyur-udaiyan Nadaripungalan who figures as donor of land
(No.83); Senapatigal Taliyil Madurantakan alias
Rajendrachola-Kidarattaraiyar and his wife Rajakesarivalli (No. 55) ;
and Senapatigal IIangovelar alias Sendamangalam-udaiyan
Jayangondasolan (No. 32), of whom the latter endowed for a garden to be
named Kidarangondavilagam, the surname ‘Rajendrachola Kidarattaraiyar’
of the donor in the dormer and the name of the garden
Kidarangondavilagam in the latter affording lithic proof of Kulottunga’s
association with Kidaram or Kadaram ; Vanadhiraja, the minister of
Jayadhara i.e. Kulottunga, who seems to have raised a prakara
wall to the temple (No. 26) and whose name Arumoli Rajadhirajan occurs
along with his dynastic title Vanadhiraja in another inscription
recording his endowment for a flower garden (No. 27) ; Neriyan
Muvendavelar alias Adittan Vedavana-mudaiyan
Chola-Kerala-Nallurudaiyan (No. 28) ; Rajendrachola Adiyaman alias
Araiyan Sendan of Ponparri (No. 33) and Senapati Virarajendra
Adigaiman (No. 54), among the Adigaiman chiefs of Kongu ; Senapati
Rajanarayana Munaiyadaraiyar alias Kotturudaiyan Araiyan
Rajendracholan and Senapati Vira-Chola Munaiyadaraiyar alias
Ayarkolundu Chakrapani of Kottur who endowed for the recitation of
Tiruppallieluchchi and Tiruvaymoli in the temple (No. 60)
Cholasikhamani Muvendavelar, the Srikaryam of the temple (No. 67)
Vira Vichachadira Muvendavelar, who also held the same office (No. 65)
and his namesake who bore the alias name Siralan
Tiruchchirrambalamudaiyan, and Bhuvaninarayana Muvendavelar of Nedunjeri
(No. 88), all of whom bore the distinctive surname Muvendavelar ;
Kannagan Karumanikkan alias Valava Vichchadira Pallavararayan
(No.85) ; Adittan Tiruvarangadevan alias Virudarajabhayankara
Vijayapalan (No. 77); Pallikondan Kuttanar alias Vilinattaraiyar
of Sirramur (No. 86) who may be distinguished from Uyyavandan alias
Vilinattaraiyan of Villinam alias Rejendrasolappattinam occurring
in an inscription of the 25th year of the king from
Tirunelveli (A.R. Ep., 1927 No. 46) and who might have belonged to the
Munrukai-mahasenai which boasts among its other achievements, to have
destroyed Vilinjam on the sea[3]
, Nishadarajar who figures as the Srikaryam of the temple (No.
83) and whose identity with his namesake bearing the surname
Tirukkoodungunramudaiyan Keralan in another record of the 25th
year of the king’s reign from Sivapuri: is probable; and lastly
Rajarajan Madurantakan alias Vatsarajan (No. 58) who endowed land for a
matha named after him for feeding some Srivaishnavas at the
instance of Nishadarajan.
Notable among the ladies who figures as
donors to the temple are Nambirattiyar Lokamahadeviyar (No. 36) who
endowed lands for a flower garden who, may be identified as the queen of
Rajamahendra is said to have provide a serpent couch set with precious
stones to god Ranganatha, and who, according to the Koyilolugu, effected
many structural alterations in the temple. Though lithic references to
the former are lacking, in inscription (No. 27) of the 25th
regnal year of the king inscribed on the north wall of the third
prakara specifically states that the record was ordered to be
engraved on the wall of the Rajamah ndran-triuchchurru, which to this
day, retains the same name. No. 61 dated in the 15th regnal
year of the king, introduces the donor Neriyan, Mahadevi who is
described as a daughter of Pandiyanar, and No. 62, dated in the same
year mentions Tennavan Mahadevi (Pandya Prinices) as a queen of
Rajendradeva (Kulottunga I). If the two are identical, the epigraphs
furnish us with a hitherto unknown fact that a Pandya figured among the
queens of Kulottunga I. Tennavan Mahadevi bears the alias
Rajarajan Aru. Moliyar in No. 73, dated in the 25th regnal
year of the kinf which records a further endowment of one veli of land
adjacent to the plot already endowed by her a decade earlier.
Another Chola queen, a Valavan Madevi
whose identity is not otherwise indicated on a account of the
fragmentary nature of the record also figures as a donor of some land in
the 29th year of Kulottunga’s reign (No. 76). Gunavalli
alias Pendath Kadavurudaiyal obviously a lady of high rank and
Siriyandal-sani, daughter of Atreyan Damodaran Narayanan and wife of
Tayanambipiran figure as donors of land the former for a flower garden
and the latter for the Srivaishnavas of the temple in No. 72 and 104
respectively.
Before passing on to the reign of
Vikramachola, the next king represented by the inscriptions in the
temple, a few details for outstanding interest in the records of
Kulottunga I may be mentioned here. We may note the role of the temple
treasury as a bank for advancing funds, taking deterrent steps for
collecting arrears from its constituents or even affecting their arrest
for default or non-payment (No. 46) No. 52 records the repayment with
interest of a long-standing loan raised by the sabha of
Chandralekhai-Chaturvedi-mangalam (the modern Sendalai from the treasury
of god Ananthanarayana svamin at Srirangam. Though the details of the
transaction are unfortunately lost due to the damaged state of the
record, this much can be gathered that the loan was raised in the 10th
regnal year of Madiraikonda Parakesarivarman i.e. Parantaka I (c. 917
A.D.) and discharged in the 10th year of the reign of
Kulothttunga I (c. 1080 A.D.) an interval that stretched over a period
of more than a century and a half. The succor extended by the temple
treasury for rehabilitating a village that had suffered destruction in a
conflict is recorded in No. 53 which refers to a clash between the Right
and Left hand classes in the 2nd year of the king’s reign
resulting in the burning down of the village
Rajamahendra-chaturvedimangalam , destruction of its sacred places and
looting of its temple treasury and the images by robbers. The treasury
advanced funds to the Sabha which undertook the work of
rehabilitating the village and renovating and re-consecrating its
temple. A marginal note engraved on the top left coroner of this record
is considerable significance. It states that this kalvettu
(inscriptions) belonged to Rajamahendra-chaturvedimangalam which
according to the main inscription, was situated in Nittavinodavalanadu.
This latter division comprised parts of the present Nannilam and
Papanasam taluks of the Tanjavur district and as such the village under
or fifty miles away from Srirangam. The reason for engraving this
record so far away from Rajamahendra-chaturvedimangalam is inexplicable,
particularly because it was done in the 11th year of the
king’s reign when, unlike in the second year of his reign when the
political had come to sway over the entire Chola territory and as such
could have chosen a place nearer to the village for recording the
transaction. The clash between the Right-hand and the Left-hand classes
alluded to in the inscription was probably an off shoot of this feud.
An inscription of Adhirajendra at Chittamalli in the Mannargudi taluk (A.R.
Ep., 1945-46, No. 5) which bears a date closely falling in the period of
these clashes referred to in the Srirangam epigraph seems to confirm
this surmise.
Mention must be made here of a kannada
inscription (No. 75) which quotes the 29th regnal year of
Kulottunga but begins with the typical Western Chalukya prasasti
Samastabhubvanasraya. Prithvi-Vallabha etc., and records certain
endowments made by a group of Kons apparently headed by a person whose
name is lost but who is mentioned as the Kannada sandhivigrahi
and the Dandanayaka of king Tribhuvanamalla i.e. Vikramaditya (VI). The
presence at Srirangam of Sandhivigrahi of the Chalukya king, whose
rivalry with the Chola king is well known, is enigmatic. Was it, after
all, in the capacity of a pilgrim that the Chalukya dignitary and his
followers visited this holy place.
The alliances that were effected by the
Chola monarchs Rajendradeva and his brother Virarajendra by giving their
daughters in marriage to the Eastern Chalukya Rajendra II who
subsequently ascended the Chola throne as Kulottunga-Chola I and the
Western Chalukya Vikramaditya VI respectively apparently had the desired
result of allaying at least for the time being, the enmity between the
two rival houses. For, it seems as though the visit of Vikramaditya’s
Sandhivigrahi to Srirangam and the apparent deference he had
shown to the ruling monarch of the reign i.e. Kulottunga, in quoting the
latter’s regnal year rather than that of his own sovereign Vikramaditya
shows the friendly relationship that prevailed between these two kings
at the period.[4]
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No. 84, dated in the 39th
regnal year of the king which refers to the sale of some temple land to
Ariyan Vasudeva Bhattan alias Rajaraja Brahmarayan of
Anishtanam in Kasmiradesam seems to give a clue to the origin
of the name Aryabhattal-vasal by which one of the main entrances into
the temple is now known. Tradition ascribes this to certain
Arya-Brahmana from the Gauda-desa in the north who came to Srirangam
with treasure as offering to the god and that prior to its acceptance by
the deity; it was left at the entrance and guarded by these Brahmanas in
consequence of which it came to be known as the Aryabhattal-vasal.
The koyilo-lugu, referring to this legend, dates it in Kali 360, an
impossibly early period. The inscription under reference being the
earliest to refer to the Arya-Brahmanas or Aryabhattal their connection
with this temple may reasonably be dated from about this period, viz.,
12th century A.D. This appears to have been the period when
there was an influx of people from the remote north as pilgrims to
important centers of worship in the South as may be gathered from some
epigraphs of Lalgudi, Tiruvorriyur and Kalahasti which mention a
resident of Kasmirapuram as a donor in these places (A.R. Ep., 1928-29,
part II, Para 36)
Vikrama-Chola’s records, numbering
fourteen altogether, range in date from the 3rd to the 16th
year of his reign. The majority of them are confined to the walls of
the 3rd prakara which is popularly known as
Vikrama-cholan-tiruchchurru, even to this day. The Koyilolugu
ascribes the 5th prakara of the temple besides some
other structures and a temple of Rama to this king. This prakara
no doubt forms the 5th counted from the outer-most of the
seven prakaras of the temple but whether this was at all, a work
attributable to Vikrama-Chola is not borne out by any epigraphical
evidence barring the fact that almost all the records of the king are,
as pointed above confirmed to the walls of this (3rd)
prakara. In no. 120 of the inner wall, right of the
Aryabhattalvasal, the Srivaishnavakkanmis of the temple
together with the temple accountant made a gift of land for a flower
garden to be named Avirodisilan. Whether is was after an epithet of
Vikrama-Chola himself that the garden was so named is however not
known. Among the donors figuring in this period may be mentioned
Udaiyan Velan Karunakaran alias Tondaimanar, the famous general of the
king who is praised in the Vikramacholan-ula as the conqueror of
Kalingam and Puravangudaiyan Araiyan Adittadevan alias Enadi
Araiyan of Puliyangudi (No, 113) who endowed land for a flower garden
at the instance of Valavanarayana Muvendavelar, the srikaryam of
the temple. The garden was to be named Nidiyabharanan-nanadavanam,
probably after an epithet of the king. No. 122 which is dated in the 16th
year, the very last of Vikrama-Chola and which is engraved on the north
wall of the fourth prakara, records provision for the feeding of
Apurvi-Srivaishnava Brahmanas on the festival days in the Panguni
month, for which purpose Sirilangon-Tirunadudaiyan had endowed lands.
It is noteworthy that the inscription invokes the protection of the
Abhimanabhushanar of the three mandals instead of the
Srivaishnavas of the 18 vihayas generally quoted.
Abhimanabhushana chaturvedimangalam as the name of a village and
Abhimanabhushana-velan as the name of a residential quarter are
mentioned in inscriptions of Rajaraja at Tanjore.
[5]
The only two records of Kulottunga II
(Nos. 123 and 124) are dated in the 7th and 11th
regnal years respectively of the king. The earlier of them recording
details of the leasing out of temple lands for rearing coconut and areca
purports to be an order issued forth by the deity itself, ostensibly to
bind the lessees from discharging their obligations to the temple
regularly. Similar instances of records in the form of memoranda issued
in the name of the presiding deity of the place are often met with in
this temple itself as also in others.[6]
A record (No. 125) of Rajaraja II dated in
the 11th year of his reign (A.D. 1156) registers a gift of a
golden lamp stand set with a ruby and an endowment of money towards
supply of camphor and oil for maintaining it by Kodai Ravivarman of
Venadu in Malai-nadu.
It is noteworthy that this record too like
that (No. 75) of the western Chaluky Vikramaditya VI quotes the regnal
year not of the donor but of the reigning king of the region viz.,
‘Kulottunga II. As in the other record cited, here too the gift was
made to the deity by Kandan Iravi, ulliruppu officer of the Venadu king
on behalf of his overlord. Instances of kings making endowments and
grants to temples situated outside their own dominions through their
officers or feudatories, or getting some religious rites performed in
such places by proxies in tirthas or places of pilgrimage are not
wanting. An inscription of the Eastern Ganga king and another of his
queen at Kanchi or Kanchipuram[7],
one of the Gahadavala king at Suryanarkoyil[8], and several of the Hoysala, Vijayanagara, and many other rulers at
Varanasi[9],
recording grants made to the local deities or referring to the religious
rites performed there by their proxies are instances to the point.
An interesting detail that may be gathered
in the record under review is that it specifies the rate of exchange
between the achchu, the coinage of the Travancore territory and
the kasu, the Chola coinage as 1:9.
Among the five inscriptions of Rajadhiraja
II, (Nos 127-31) the first two are dated in the 9th regnal
year of the king. Of them the former (No. 127) who was a merchant of
Kurattippattanam in Kaivara-nadu, a division of Poysla-nadu and who had
presented a large fore-head jewel to the god. The cash endowment of 70
kasu paid into temple treasury was invested at the rate of 1/16
kasu per kasu per month yielding an interest of 4-3/8
kasu every month and this amount was used to meet the cost of a
daily supply of one ulakku of ghee for a lamp in the temple. The yield
on the endowment amount at the above rate works out to 75 per cent which
by any standard is unusually high.
No. 128 mentions the chief Virrirundan
Seman alias Tirukkuraivalartta Akalanka-Nadalvar of
Tiruttavatturai as donor of a thousand kasu for some special
festival in the temple. A record of this same king from Tiruppachchur (A.R.
Ep., 1929-30, No. 124) couples his 9th regnal year with Saka
1095 yielding A.D. 1163 as the initial year for his reign. In some
inscriptions of this king from Salem district (A.R. Eo., 1929-30, Nos.
496, 499 and 500) this same chief, Virrirundan Seman, figures as leading
an expedition against Kollimalai, probably on behalf of his overlord.
Nos 129-31, all engraved on the fourth prakara wall opposite the
shrine of Udaiyavar, record oaths of fealty taken by certain men to
serve upto death their master Virrirundan seman as servants (velaikkaras).
The expedition of this chief and the oaths of fealty that bound his
servants to him appear to be intimately connected with Rajadhiraja’s
leading part in the succession dispute that broke out among the Pandya
of whom one rival party sought the help of the Chola monarch while the
other appealed to the Singhalese ruler Parakramabahu for help.
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There are nineteen inscriptions (Nos.
132-150) assignable to the reign of Kulottunga III. No. 133 among them,
though not dated in his reign records that the various works of
construction including Magadesam alias
Adaiyavalaindan-tirumaligai and the worship in the temple described as
the tutelary property (kuladhanam) of the king were under the protection
of Tayilum Nallan alias Kulottungasola-Vanakovaraiyar. Though
the deity of the temple is not referred to there is nothing to prevent
us from identifying the temple with that of Ranganathasvami temple. On
the basis of the negative evidences that both the king and the officer
had a learning towards Saivism and that they are not known to have been
such ardent Vaishnava devotees as to call the Srirangam temple as their
kuladhanam it has been surmised that the slabs bearing this
inscription probably belonged to some portion of the prakara wall
of the neighboring Jambukesavara temple and that they were inscribed
later their present position[10].
Now that we know that the temple enjoyed the patronage of Chola
Parantaka I who is stated to have gilded the vimana of the Ranganathaswami temple[11]
as stated in his Velacheri copper plate record, it is quite proper to
state that both the Saivite Periyakoyil at Chidambaram and the
Vaishnavite periyakoyil at Srirangam were considered by the Cholas as a
whole as their kuladhanam. As for Adaiyavalaindan Tiirumaligai (ch-churru)
it is quite a well-known name of a prakara in the temple.[12]
<More>
[1] Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture,
Vol. I, pp. 368-71. Efforts are now under way to complete this
gopura
[2]
An instance of a Siva temple figuring as a recipient of some
donation from Puttadigal’ alias Alivina Kalakanda-Prithvigangaraiyan
occurs in an inscription from Solapuram, (Ep. Ind., VIII, p. 195-D;
and page 195 note 1).
[3]
A.R. Ep., 1929 No. 23
[4]
See however Ep. Ind., Vols. XXXI, p. 226; XXXII, pp. 191 ff.
[5]
S.I.I. VOL. II p. 483, line 7.
[6]
See Nos 123, 140, 142, 203, 257; also S.I.I. Vol. V, Nos 243, 295,
306 and 416
[7]
Ep. Ind., Vol. XXI, pp. 94-98
[8]
A.R. Ep., 1908, Part II, Para 58.
[9]
Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXIII, pp. 103-16.
[10]
A.R. Ep., 1936-37 p. 72.
[11]
Ibid., 1977-78, No. A. 21
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