|
The Indian Analyst
|
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA No. 19] SEVEN VATTELUTTU INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE KONGU COUNTRY 95 (3 Plates) K. V. SUBRAHMANYA AYYER, COIMBATORE Here are edited seven Vaṭṭeluttu inscriptions from the Koṅgu country. I am indebted to the Government Epigraphist for India, for sending me the impressions of these records. The first of them comes from Koḍuvāy and the rest from Piramiyam. Both the villages are situated in the Dhārāpuram Taluk of the Coimbatore District. A few words may be said here about Piramiyam where six out of the seven inscriptions edited below were found. It is an insignificant village situated on the bank of the Amarāvatī river[1] and is 8 miles north-east of Dhārāpuram, the Taluk headquarters.[2] while the seven sacred temples of the Koṅgu province,[3] celebrated in the hymns of the canonised Śaiva saints Tirujñānasambandhar, Appar and Sundaramūrti-Nāyanār, have failed to provide us with their history owing to their original structures having disappeared without leaving any vestiges of their past and having been replaced by new ones of later times, Piramiyam preserves one of the most ancient structural monuments of the province.[4] This monument is dedicated to Śiva and is attributable to at least the latter half of the tenth century A.D. Tradition asserts that the region in which Piramiyam is situated was variously known as Dārukāvanam, Karṇikāravanam and Punnāgavanam, that Brahman performed Yajña at this place to propitiate Śiva and that the sage Agastya set up a liṅga in the place and blessed it to remain for all time under the name Valañjulinātha. It is further pointed out that Koṅgaṇa, the son of a Magadha king, came here, gave himself up to austerities and became a siddha and was called Koṅgaṇasiddha and that it was also hallowed by being the place where Iḍaiñāni, a shepherd sage, spent most of his life time.
Vīrasaṅgāta-chaturvēdimaṅgalam is the name given in inscriptions to Piramiyam and it is said to be a brahmadēya in Tenkarai-nāḍu. The affix chaturvēdimaṅgalam and brahmadēya indicate that it was originally given to Brāhmaṇas studying the four Vēdas and the prefix Vīrasaṅgāta shows that it was called after a chief, king or general who had the distinction of being known as Vīrasaṅgāta (i.e., Vīrasaṅghāta), ‘ the slaughterer of warriors or heroes ’. There is no direct evidence to show when the village came into existence. In one[5] of the inscriptions edited below there figures a person holding the position of a minister and he is styled Vīrasaṅgātan Śūrriyadēvan Vānavan Uttaramantri alias Nānādēśiyanāṭṭu-Cheṭṭi. In the name Vīrasaṅgātan Śūrriyadēvan, the first part might indicate the patronymic of the person and, if so, it may be said that the village owed its name to the benefaction of this minister ; and the village may be said to have been formed at the end of the 10th century A.D. when, as will be shown in the sequal,[6] Vīraśola-Kalimūrkka-Perumāḷ, who must have been the immediate predecessor of Kalimūrkka-Vikrama-Chōḷa-Kōnāṭṭān, flourished. The inscriptions of the place inform us that this Chaturvēdimaṅgalam, like the others of its class, was subject to the assembly of the sabhā. The modern name Piramiyam of the village ______________________________________________________________ [1] This river is also called Amabānadī, Ānporunai or Ānporundam or Amarāvatī. It is said to take its rise
from the Varāha hills.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
