South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

DOMMARA-NANDYALA PLATES OF PUNYAKUMARA ;
10TH YEAR

use of the visarga, as for example, in nāmaḥ for nāmā (l.5), paurṇamāsyāḥ for paurṇamāsyāṁ (l.14), dattaḥ for dattaṁ (ll. 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 and 22) ; (ii) the omission of the visarga as in kāriṇa for kāriṇaḥ (l. 4), pāraga for pāragaḥ (l. 8) and krimi for krimiḥ (l. 23) ; (iii) wrong sandhi as in adhipati tasya for adhipatis=tasya (l.8). Puṇyakumāra nāma for Puṇyakumārō nāma (l.12). etc.; (iv) the use of d for t in ādma (l. 4), the aspirate dhi for the unaspirate in vidhitaṁ (l. 13), the unaspirate ṭ for the aspirate in vishṭāyāṁ (l. 23), and a few other errors which have been duly corrected in the body of the text itself may be noted. Except for the invocatory verse at the beginning and the imprecatory verse at the end, the one in the Āryā-gītī and the other in the Anushṭubh metres, the entire record is in Sanskrit prose. The text contains no signs of punctuation anywhere in its body.

Coming the contents of the record it may be remarked at the outset that the text of these plates is almost identical with that of the Mālēpāḍu plates, but for a few variations here and there. The opening verse is in praise of Śiva in his form as Lakuṭapāṇi.^[1] Nandivarman, described here in terms similar to those used in the Mālēpāḍu plates, had three sons named Siṁhavishṇu, Sundarananda and Dhanañjayavarman, of whom the youngest and the last. viz., Dhanañjayavarman, had a son named Mahēndravarman who acquired of obtained the title Chōḷa-Mahārāja, was well versed in grammar and other sciences, was the lord of the Pāṇḍya, Chōḷa and Kēraḷa (countries), and possessed many titles such as Muditaśilākshara, Navarāma, etc. His son was Guṇamaudita whose brother was the glorious Puṇyakumāra who bore the epithets Pōrmukharāma, Mārdavachitta, Madanavilāsa, etc., and was the lord of the Hiraṇyarāshṭra. The object of the inscription is the grant by Puṇyakumāra in the 10th year (of his reign), while he was camping at Pudorūr, of lands in the villages Nandigāma and Pasiṁḍikuru to five Brāhmaṇas. The inscription closes with the usual imprecatory verse and mentions towards the end Koṭṭikuṇṭarāja as the writer of the charter. This chief, it may be observed, figures in the Mālēpāḍu plates as the ājñapti.^[2] The record is not

_______________________________________________

^[1] Reference to Śiva as Lakuṭapāṇi in this record is of considerable interest. It has been shown by Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar that Lakulī, the last incarnation of god Mahēśvara, could be placed in the first quarter of the 2nd century A.D. and that the worship of Śiva in the form of Lakuḷīśa or Lakuṭapāṇi was prevalent not only in Central India but also in regions as far south as Mysore and as far east as Orissa (An. Rep. Arch. Sur. of India, 1906-07, pp. 179 ff. and J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. XXII, pp. 151 ff.). The earliest inscriptional reference hitherto known for the Lakuḷīśa-pāśupata cult in South India is furnished by the Chikbaḷḷāpur plates of the Gaṅga king Jayatēja of A.D.810 (Mys. Arch. Rep. for 1914, p. 29 and para. 60). That this cult flourished in the Telugu as well as the Tamil countries further south also is vouched for by references to teachers or pontiffs of this school in inscriptions (above, Vol. XXII, p. 162 ; An. Rep. on South Indian Epigraphy, 1908, p. 75 ; South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. III, No. 18 ; A. R. No. 100 of 1906). But none of these references, it may be noted, takes us to a date prior to the 9th century A.D. It will thus be seen that the record under review and the Mālēpāḍu plates (see f.n. 6 on p. 274) give the earliest epigraphic reference so far known to the worship of Śiva in the form of Lakuṭapāṇi or Lakulīśa in South India. It may not be out of place to quote here a verse which gives the characteristics of the image of Lakuḷīśa from Viśvakarmāvatāravāstuśāstra, a Ms. in the Dekkan College Library, cited by Dr. Bhandarkar.

                        Na(La)kuḷīśaṁ ūrdhvamēḍhraṁ                  

                               padmāsana-susaṁsthitaṁ||

                        dakshiṇē mātaliṅgaṁ cha

                                    vāmē daṇḍaṁ prakīrttitaṁ ||

Dr. Bhandarkar has also cited several images answering to this description, but all these sculptures are confined to Central India ; and, so far as I know, no image of Lakuḷīśa or Lakuṭapāṇi has come to light in South India.            
^[2] Above, Vol. XI, pp. 339 and 345 ; the chief’s name which was read as Koṭṭikuldarāja can be clearly read as Koṭṭikuṇṭarāja as in the record under review. The name Koṭṭikuṇṭa sounds very much like a place name and it is possible that the chief derived his name from the region over which he wielded authority or the place he hailed from ; but I am unable at present to identify any place in the region which conforms to this name.