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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA TIRUVORRIYUR INSCRIPTION OF CHATURANANA PANDITA Our inscription gives in broad outlines the full career of this general of Rājāditya. The first verse of the inscription describes the nativity of the general; and it is therefore unfortunate that parts of the first half of this verse are lost. From what has been left it is clear that the general was called Vaḷabha and he was the son of Rājaśēkhara, the chief of Vallabharāshṭra. This Rājaśēkhara, it is also clear, stood in some relation, as a subordinate or general to the lord of Kēraḷa (Kēraḷānām nāthasya ………). Vaḷabha became a scholar even as a boy, was valorous and was seized with an enthusiasm to go forth and be of service to the world. It was the time when the Chōḷa king, Parāntaka I, had married a Kēraḷa princess and this intimate alliance had led a number of Kēraḷa warriors to seek the Chōḷa country for service under the Chōḷa king and his son.[1] Vaḷabha, as one of these, reached the Chōḷa country and became greatly attached to Rājāditya, who, though the inscription calls him Rājan, was at this time, a Viceroy under his father Parāntaka I. Vaḷabha rose to the position of a general under Rājāditya, but when the latter was attacked by the Rāshṭrakūṭas at Takkōlam, Vaḷabha was not by his side. He would have desired to lay down his life for his master or with him, but fate willed otherwise, and he was stricken with deep grief for his absence and failure to die with his master which were unworthy of himself, his family and his master. He therefore renounced worldly life and went to the Ganges. Having bathed in the celestial river, he wandered back to the south and reached Tiruvorriyūr which was famous for its religious and spiritual associations. There he entered a cave called after Nirañjanaguru, the head of affairs at Tiruvorriyūr. He attained spiritual enlightenment there[2] and emerged as a siddha. Gradually the cave rose to importance and was converted into a regular maṭha. Assuming the spiritual name Chaturānana Paṇḍita, the ex-general Vaḷabha began to administer this maṭha, as also the affairs of the temple. Thus did position and authority, which he had once renounced, come back to him, he succeeded to the important place previously held by Nirañjanaguru as the head of affairs at Tiruvorriyūr, and it is as the head of his own maṭha, that our general, now Chaturānana Paṇḍita, made an endowment which was the occasion for setting up this inscription.
The Tamil part of the inscription which follows mentions the 20th year of (the reign of) Kannaradēva, the victor over Kāñchī and Tanjore, and says that Tiruvorriyūr was in the division called Pular-kōṭṭam;[3] and adds that, for the purpose of the conduct of worship on every Aviṭṭam, his natal constellation, Chaturānanna Paṇḍita Bhaṭāra of the maṭha, gave to the Lord an endowment. The actual mention of the gift is lost and the major part of the epigraph in the Tamil portion is taken up by an enumeration of the details of articles and persons required for the service. It is possible to reconstruct the full civil name of Chaturānana Paṇḍita from a close interpretation of the first verse. The verse calls him Vaḷabha and son of the chief of Vallabharāshṭra ; therefore Vaḷabha seems to be only a form of Vallabha, which is the name taken after his Rāshṭra. His father is called Rājaśēkhara which means also, by double entendre, Śiva. (the moon-crested god); and Vaḷabha is said to have been born to Rājaśēkhara, even as Guha to Rājaśēkhara, i.e., Śiva. The completion of the rhetoric here requires that Vaḷabha also had a personal name meaning Guha or Subrahmaṇya, and that was, in all probability, Kumāra. _______________________________________________
[1] See An. Rep. of the A.S.I., 1905-6, p. 181. Venkayya says that several of the Tirunāmanallūr inscriptions
mention natives of Malabar among the servants of Rājāditya, and gives in the footnote the names of six such Malayāḷis. See also, S. I. I., Vol. II, p. 386, verse 8; and K. A. N. Sastri : Colas, I. pp. 162-3. According to Venkayya
(loc. cit. p. 182) Rājāditya’s mother Kōkkilānaḍigaḷ was the Kēraḷa princess married by Parāntaka I (see also
A. R. on S. I. E. 1912, p 56), but according to Prof. Nilakanta Sastri (Colas. I. p. 162), it was Arṁjaya’s mother
who was a Kēraḷa princess.
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