Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

  The Tamil portion of the grant opens with the royal command addressed to the officials and others on the 107th day of the 8th year of the king’s reign announcing the gift of the village Tribhuvanamahādēvi-chaturvēdimaṅgalam from his seat in the hall (maṇḍapa) called Rājēndrachōḷa-Brahmādhirājan in his camp at Perumbarrappuliyūr, i.e., Chidambaram. The villages which were grouped to form the agrahāra are then enumerated, specifying the lands demarcated in each of them for the purpose. Then follows the statement that the gift was duly registered in the presence of a number of officers, on the 110th day of the same year. The king, here called Parakēsarivarman Rājēndra-Chōḷadēva, is then introduced with his well-known short eulogy which commences with the words Tirumannivaḷara and stops with the mention of his conquest of Śāndimattīvu. As eulogies or the meykkīrttis usually limit the description of a king’s conquests to the date of his particular grant or record, and as the conquest of Sāndimattīvu finds mentions already in records of the king’s 7th regnal year, it may not be wrong to conclude that between the 7th and the 8ths years of his reign no further victories were achieved by king Rājēndra-Chōḷa. The grant further on states that the various officials of the districts received the king’s order directing them to demarcate the boundaries of the agrahāra by circumambulating the she-elephant along its limits. Then follows the detailed description of the boundaries. After the completion of this ceremonial fixation of the boundaries, the gift village was declared a brahmadēya with effect from the same year of the king’s reign. The necessary entries to the effect were made in the registers and the document handed over on the 380th day. The charter closes with the names of the officers who affixed their signatures and of those who gave their approval to the deed.

  The last section of the document consisting of 30 plates contains the list of names of the donees specifying their places of residence, their gōtras and sūtras as well as the shares which each of them got.

Copper-plate No. 12 belongs to king Shashṭhadēva II of the Kadamba family and is dated Kali 4357 (in words), 8th year of the king’s reign, Durmati, Pushya, amāvasyā, Saturday. It registers the gift of the village Gāḍivare situated in Ajjagāve-kampaṇa of Panasa-dēśa to Lakshmīdhara and his brothers, sons of the astronomer Lōkaṇa. The gift was made in the presence of god Mahābalēśvara of Gōkarṇa. The record gives the genealogy of the family of the Kadambas of Goa for nine generations from Gūhalla down to the donor Shashṭhadēva (II). The Kali and cyclic years cited in the record do not tally although the details of the date quoted with the cyclic year Durmati work out correctly to 1262 A.C., January 21, Saturday. A similar discrepancy is observed between the Kali and the cyclic years quoted in the only other dated copperplate grant of this king (Ind. Ant., Vol. XVII, p. 300) in which again the details of date given for the cyclic year work out correctly. In the case of the latter record, Fleet was inclined to take the kali year quoted as the one from which the king counted his regnal years. But the Kali year cited in the grant under review is nine years later than that quoted in the other, and so if the Kali year cited in this grant is also considered as marking the initial year of the king’s reign, we have two different dates from which this king counted his regnal year, viz., 1246 A.C. (Kali 4348) and 1255 A.C. (Kali 4357). A later record of this chief belonging to 1264 A.C. (ARSIE, No. 447 of 1926) describes him as a subordinate of the Yādava king Mahādēva. As the grant under review, which is two years earlier than the stone inscription cited above, was issued by the chief in an independent capacity, he appears to have been subjugated by the Yādavas sometime between 1262 and 1264 A.C. The seal affixed to the ring of the plates bears the name of the king as well as the figure of a lion which was the emblem of the dynasty.

   No. 13 is another Kadamba grant belonging to the reign of Tribhuvanamalla, son of Jayakēśin and grandson of Shashṭhadēva (I), ruling from his capital Gōpaka (Goa). It is dated Śaka 1028, Vyaya, Phālguṇa, śu, di. 13, Thursday = 1107 A.C., February 7, and registers gift of lands, gardens and house in different localities by Kēlivarman, an officer of the king, to twelve Brāhmaṇas. The donor Kēlivarman is stated to be the son of Nāgaṇa and grandson of Kālapa who were respectively the officers under Jayakēśin (I) and Shashṭhadēva (I). We know of two sons of Jayakēśin I whose names were Gūvaladēva and Vijayāditya, of whom the former had the biruda or surname Tribhuvanamalla.