Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

Trivhuvanamalla of the present charter may therefore be identified with Gūvaladēva, the eldest son of Jayakēśin I (published Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX, p. 71).

  No. 16 received for examination through the Collector of South Satara and now preserved in the Museum at Sangli belongs to king Kṛishṇaḍēvarāya of Vijayanagara and is dated Śaka 1434, Aṅgirasa, (= 1512. A.C.). It records the gift by the king of the village Niṭāla renamed Kṛishṇarāyapura situated in the Kopaṇa-sīma in Paḍuva-nāḍaka, a sub-division of Hastināvati-rājya to Timmājyōtisha of Arsīkere as sarvamānya-agrahāra. Kopaṇa-sīma corresponds to the region around Kopbal in the Raichur District in the Hyderabad State, north of the Tuṅgabhadrā. That this region formed part of the Vijayanagara kingdom during this period is learnt from the present record which refers to the kingdom of Vijayanagara as Hastināvati-rājya, Hastināvati evidently standing for Ānegondi near Hampi (Vijayanagara).

  No. 59 from Bellary in the Madras state belongs to king Adil Shāh of Bijāpur and is dated Śaka 1596, Ānanda which corresponds to 1674. A.C. The inscription states that while Adil Shāh Pādshāh was ruling the country from Penugoṇḍa and while Abdul Hussain Sāhib was administering the region on behalf of the Pādshāh, a deed conferring the right of collecting some dues from the Vaiśya community was executed under the orders of the ruler in favour of Bhūpatyāchārya, son of Bhāskara Paṇḍita the high priest of the Vaiśya community as against Kṛishṇaya who claimed the same right. On the date cited in the record, the ruler of Bijāpur was Sikandar Adil Shāh, a boy of seven years. That on this date the authority of the Nawab of Bijāpur extended south as far as Penugoṇḍa in the Anantapur District is attested by the present record. This is noteworthy, as not long after this date, the Marāṭhā chief Śivāji overran this country, and raided the southern regions as far as Tanjore in or before 1677 A. C.

   From Pondicherry was received a curious bronze plaque, the obverse of which contains sculptures in seven rows depicting several gods and goddesses and some artisan tools. The reverse of the plaque contains an inscription (No. 55) in Telugu which registers an agreement between two disputing artisan communities. The disputants are said to have come to an agreement in the presence of a certain Ḍakaṇāchāri who bears a number of interesting epithets such as the ‘lord of Pendōlupura’, devotee of the goddess Kāḷikādēvī and Kamaṭhēśvara, etc. The sculptured panels on the obverse of the plate evidently represent these deities and the artisan tools, the emblems of the communities. The inscription is not dated but may referred to the 16th or 17th century A.C. on palaeographical. grounds.

Stone Inscriptions

  Of the 415 stone inscriptions copied during the year the more important are reviewed below.

   From the caves at Kaṇhēri, Bombay State, 38 inscriptions were copied Of these 24 have been already published and, of the remaining, an inscription in Sanskrit may be noticed here. It is in cave No. 11 and is a long records of 16 lines composed mostly in verse (No. 169). The characters belong to the southern alphabet of about the 5th century A.C. The epigraph which is damaged seems to record the grant of a village to the community of Buddhist monks. Mention is made of Kṛishṇaśaila, i.e., Kaṇhēri, Dramiḷa and a Buddhist monk named Kumāraguru. The existence of this inscription has been noticed previously though it was not read (Lüder’s List, No. 997). Just below this is another Sanskrit inscription in Nāgarī characters of about the 8th-9th century A.C. (No. 170). It consists of two lines and mentions Kṛishṇagiri-mahavihara.

   An inscription engraved on a sculptured slab was discovered at Sāṅgsi in the Kolhapur District (No. 140). The sculptures represent a lady of high rank attended by followers and lying on a funeral pyre in flames. The characters which are box-headed belong to the southern class of alphabets. The language in Sanskrit. The epigraph which consists of a single verse in the Śārdūlavikrīḍita metre records the death of a queen by name Hālidēvī who died young and