South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

lotus-flower below. In front of the animal is depicted an aṅkuśa, while over it is shown a crescent with a star within.^[1]

The characters belong to the southern class of alphabets, regular for the period and locality to which the inscription belongs. They are, so to say, precursors of the modern Telugu characters. In ll. 28 and 30, we have instances of r and l, which letters are peculiar to the Telugu and other South-Indian dialects and scripts. Attention may also be drawn to the forms of initial a, i, u and ē, which occur, for example, in ll. 11, 12, 27 and 25 respectively. The final n and m are represented each by a special sign, as may be seen in ll. 22 and 3 respectively. A rather unusual way of expressing medial ē, ai and ō is to be seen in sāhasēna (l. 20), saṁpṛitair= (l. 22) and sagōtrāṇāṁ (l. 1) respectively. The form of a subscript l (ll. 6, 16 and 29) likewise deserves notice. Visargas and anusvāras are, as a rule, denoted by dots, but occasionally small circles are used instead, as may be seen in l. 16 where also the less familiar way of separating an anusvāra from the letter to which it conventionally belongs is to be noticed.^[2]

The language is Sanskrit, except that in ll. 26-30 mostly it is Telugu. The composition is in prose, except the three verses in the end, the last of which mentions the name of the com poser. As regards orthography, the occasional use of an anusvāra for a class nasal, as in puṁja-piṁjarita- (l. 8), the frequent reduplication of a consonant after a r, as in –mahīpatir= ggaṇḍara- (l. 11), non-observance of sandhi in some cases, as in l. 11, and the change of visargas to a sibilant similar to the following one, as in l. 13, are the noteworthy points. The change of ś to s in rāsi (l. 9), Sūdrakō (l. 21) and prāsana (l. 23) is noteworthy. This feature is characterised as qualitative phonetic variation and is of frequent occurrence in some Dravidian languages. There are some mistakes, of both omission and commission, which have been duly noticed in the transcript of the text.

The object of the charter is to record that the king Amma,i.e., the Eastern Chālukya king Amma I, raised a distinguished warrior, Vēmarāja by name, to the position of a village-lord (grāmaṇī), placing the village of Umikilī in the district (vishaya) of Gudravāra, under his sole control. Vēmarāja was to pay only the traditional fixed tribute of eight gadyāṇakas,^[3] presumably per annum, and, for the rest, he was exempted from all the tax and revenue. Thus, in other words, the village of Umikilī was granted to Vēmarāja. The inscription furnishes us with some interesting details regarding this person. As to his parentage, he is described to be son of Rājāditya’s younger brother Manōhitāryya, and grandson of Chandeyarāja, belonging to the Kōna family. Rājāditya must have been a notable personage, as otherwise the mention of his name in the present context is quite uncalled for. As for Chandeyarāja, he seems to have enjoyed a highly honoured position under Vijayāditya alias Guṇakkenalla, i.e., Vijayāditya III, inasmuch as he is stated to have held the same village of Umikilī as its headman and also to have received a gift of an elephant from the king. Vēmarāja himself is praised for his heroism and

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^[1] The star is represented by a dot. The same device occurs on the seals of certain other Chālukya copperplate grants. Some scholars take the dot as representing the sun (e.g., see above, Vol. V. p. 119 ; Vol. XIX, p. 149, etc.), but the relative size and the position of the dot would hardly warrant such an explanation. There are, however, instances where the sun and the moon are clearly depicted ; see, for example, the seal of the Masulipatam plates of Ammarāja II, above, Vol. XXIV, plate facing p. 275.[I would prefer taking the dot to stand for the sun. ─ C. R. K.]
^[2] See below, p. 46, n. 1.
^[3]Gadyāṇaka is supposed to be a gold coin. See above, Vol. XXI, p. 176, n. 3. It is also known as varāha or Varāha-gadyāna, ‘a pagoda equal to Rupees 3’. Ibid., Vol. VIII, p. 130. Mr. A. Ghosh kindly draws my attention to the terms gadya and gadhaiya, the latter being applied to a class of debased Indo-Sassanian silver coins of early mediæval period, but whether they have any real connection, beyond the phonetic resemblance, with the gadyāṇaka remains to be determined.