South Indian Inscriptions

INTRODUCTION

be assigned palaeographically to a date about the 9th century. During this period there were two kings who bore the name Vijayāditya, viz. Vijayāditya II Narēndra-Mṛigarāja (circa 799-847 A. D.) and Guṇaga Vijayāditya III (circa 848-92 A. D.). The former had a son called Kali-Vishṇuvardhana or Kali-Viṭṭa- rasa who was the father of Guṇaga Vijayāditya. As no other member of the family is known to have borne this name, Kali-Viṭrāju of the present record may be identified with the said prince. Whether Vijayāditya of the inscription was his father or son, however, cannot be stated with any degree of certainty. But Kaḍeyarāju, the officer mentioned in the record, figures often in the inscriptions of the time of Guṇaga Vijayāditya III and it is more probable that the ruler during whose reign the present epigraph was incised was Guṇaga Vijayāditya himself. From the Ponangy plates (A. R. Ep., C. P. No. 3 of 1908-9) we know that the Rāshṭrakūṭa princess Śīlamahādēvī was the queen of Kali-Viṭṭarasa and the mother of Guṇaga Vijayāditya. Aytakavva figuring in the present record is therefore another queen of this king not so far known from any other source.

  Nos. 149-50 are two Kannaḍa inscriptions copied at Mūḷūr within the village of Bāḷepuṇi in the Mangalore Taluk of the South Kanara District. They are engraved on the obverse and reverse sides of a slab in characters assignable to the 10th century A. D. One of them (No. 150) records the excavation of a tank in memory of a chief named Kiḷḷa Vikramāditya. The other record (No. 149) mentions Kiḷḷa Kannayya as the younger brother of Kiḷḷa Vikramāditya and introduces him with the title Mūlapura-paramēśvara. Apparently Kiḷḷa here indicates the family to which these chiefs belonged. Mūlapura is evidently the locality known as Mūḷūr which forms a part of Bāḷepuṇi.

   From Hirēkerūr, Dharwar District, comes an interesting inscription (No. 83) which belongs to the reign of the Western Chālukya king Sōmēśvara I and is dated Śaka 983 (1060 A. D.). It describes the exploits of a military officer of the monarch, named Guṇḍamayya, who bore epithets Narmadānady-ubhaya taṭa-rājahaṁsa, Maḷava-dhūmakētu, Maṇḍavakōṭ-ōllaṁghana, Dhārānagarakutūhala and Mummaṇi-jaḷadhi-baḍavānala. The epithets show that this commander of the Chālukya army distinguished himself in the northern expedition of the Chālukya king against the kingdom of Malwa. The epithet Mummaṇi-jaḷadhi- baḍavānaḷa occurring in the epigraphy suggests that he participated in another expedition of his master against the forces of Mummuṇi, the Śilāhāra chief of Northern Konkan. This Mummuṇi was ruling in 1059-60 A. D. as known from the Ambarnāth stone inscription (Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. I, part ii, pp. 543).

   Nos. 156-210 were copied at the Raṅganāthasvāmin temple at Śrīraṅgam in the Tiruchirappalli District.

   Nos. 167 and 169 at the entrance of the Nālikēṭṭānvāśal belong to Kulōttuṅgachōḷa I (circa 1070-1120 A. D.) and mention Araiyan Rājēndraśōlan alias Rāja- nārāyaṇa Munaiyadaraiyar, the chief of Koṭṭūr and a Sēnāpati under the king, and Vīra-Vichchādira (Vidyādhara) Mūvēndavēḷār, the Srīkāryam officer of the temple. The former figures as a donor to the god at Kāḷahasti in the 26th year of the king’s reign (Nos. 157 and 158 of 1922), while another member of the same family, Gaṅgaikoṇḍaśōla-Munaiyadaraiyar alias Arigaṇḍadēva Āyarkolundanār of Koṭṭūr, figures also as a Sēnāpati in other inscriptions copied earlier in this temple (A. R. Ep., Nos. 122 and 123 of 1938). No. 182 is also dated in the 26th regnal year of the king ; but the grant portion of the record seems to have been deliberately effaced. The latest record of the king in the collection is No. 210 which is dated in the 42nd year of his reign. Unlike the others, this inscription does not contain any praśasti, but commences straightaway with the mention of the date. It registers certain provisions made by the chief Vāṇakōvaraiyar for the sacred bath of the deity on the ēkādaśī day of every fortnight. Yet another damaged inscription (No. 187) seems to record a sumptuous provision of 10,000 kalam of paddy for the temple surpassing a similar gift of 2,000 kalam of paddy recorded in another epigraph copied from the temple (A. R. Ep., No. 44 of 1948-49).

   Nos. 156-58 engraved in the niches on the inner walls of the ĀryabhaṭṭāḷVāśal belong of Rājarāja III and are dated in the 23rd regnal year of the king corresponding to 1239 A. D. Of these, the first and the last, viz. Nos. 156 and 158, mention Goppaṇa and Chaṭṭaya both of whom held the office of Sēnaibōga under Valaya or Vallaiya-daṇḍanāyaka, one of the generals of Dēvan Sōmēśvaradēvan. No. 158 mentions this general as Bōgaya-daṇḍanāyakar-Vallaiya-daṇḍanāyaka. Dēvan Sōmēśvaradēvan, referred to as the overlord probably of both these generals, is obviously the Hoysaḷa king Sōmēśvara. The relationship between