Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

dasapura near Jājpur (No. 403), mentions the early Bhauma-Kara king Śubhākara and his queen Mādhavadēvī. Although it is believed that the Bhauma-Karas had their capital at Jājpur or its vicinity, the present record is the only inscription of the family discovered within the limits of Jājpur. Another inscription engraved on an image of Chāmuṇḍā near Jājpur (No. 401) mentions queen Vatsadēvī who might have been the wife of an early member of the same royal family. These two inscriptions have been published in Epigraphia Indica, Volume XXVIII, pages 179 ff. Another inscription (No. 405) is engraved on a pillar in the compound of the Śiva temple in a locality called Siddhēśvar near Jājpur. This record bears a date in the 19th Aṅka year of the Eastern Gaṅga king Narasimha IV corresponding to 1394 A. C. The importance of the inscription lies in the fact that it is one of the early records written in the Oriya language and script. This has also been published in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIX, pp. 105 ff. At the village of Valgūdar in the Monghyr District, Bihar, were discovered three inscriptions on pedestals of images (Nos. 42-43.) which record that the images in question were installed at the city of Kṛimilā. This ancient city must have been the headquarters of the vishaya of Kṛimilā mentioned in some records from Nālandā and elsewhere. The inscriptions prove beyond doubt that the present village of Valgūdar, their find-place, represents the site on which the city of Kṛimilā stood. An inscription on the stone image of a goddess called Puṇḍēśvarī at Rājaunā (No. 19) states that the image in question was installed in the 13th regnal year of king Nayapāla (c. 1038-55 A.C.) of the Pāla dynasty of Bengal and Bihar. It may be recalled that an inscription from the same place on a stone slab depicting the Dvādaśādityas was noticed in ARIE for 1947-48, p. 2. It is interesting to note that the inscriptions speak of the installation of the Dvādaśāditya slab and the Dēvī image at Kṛimilā. It is difficult to say whether the site of the ancient city of Kṛimilā included the present village Rājaunā near Valgūdar or that the two inscribed pieces at Rājauna were brought from Valgūdar with which Kṛimilā has to be identified. No. 43 from Valgūdar is dated in the 18th regnal year of king Madanapāla and bears also the Śaka date 1083. This is of exceptional interest throwing light on the hitherto unsettled chronology of the later Pālas. It shows that Madanapāla ruled from Śaka 1066 to 1084, and that he was succeeded by Gōvindapāla whose Gaya inscription dated in V. S. 1232, Vikārin, and in his 14th regnal year, points to his accession in V.S. 1219, i.e., Śaka 1084, which is the year immediately following the year quoted in the Valgūdar record of Madanapāla under review. The three inscriptions from Valgūdar have been published in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 137 ff.

  Several other Pāla inscriptions were found in the same area. Two of these (Nos. 30 and 26) belonging to the reign of Rāmapāla (c. 1077-1120 A.C.), were found at Urēn and Saṁsārpōkhrī (Lakkhisarai) and are dated respectively in the regnal years 14 and 37 of the king. Two more Pāla inscriptions, one (No. 2) of Dēvapāla (c. 810-50 A.C.) and the other of Rāmapāla (No. 1) in the Asutosh Museum, Calcutta University, were probably collected from the same region of Bihar.

  A number of stone inscriptions were copied in the Nellore, Guntur, and Kurnool District of the Telugu country and in the Districts of Ramanathapuram, Tirunelveli, Madurai and Chingleput in the Tamil area of the Madras States. Of the records collected in the Telugu districts, the earliest, discovered at Turimeḷḷa, Cumbum taluk, Kurnool District (No. 257), belongs to the Western Chālukya king Satyāśraya Vikramāditya and is dated in the second year of his reign. On palaeographical grounds the inscription may be assigned to the middle of the 7th century A.C. and the king identified with Vikramāditya I. The inscription mentions a subordinate chief bearing the epithet Ujjēnī-piśācha and ruling over the territorial division Ēruva-vishaya which roughly represents the present Cumbum taluk of the Kurnool District and the northern portions of the Nellore District contiguous to the Kurnool District. The record has been published in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIX, pp. 160 ff. A Kannaḍa record from the same place (No. 277) mentions a king called Indra-Narēndra and his army. The characters of the inscription may be referred to the 10th century A.C. and the king may be identified with Indra III of the Rāshṭrakūṭa family, of whose reign a few inscriptions have been found in the Cuddappah District.

   In the Tamil country, Iḷaiyāṅguḍi, famous in Śaiva hagiology as the birthplace of the Tamil saint Māra-Nāyanār, was visited during the year and a large