South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

TALANGERE INSCRIPTION OF JAYASIMHA

In the sentence Ūrmme Jōgavveya vaṁśadoḷ=peṇ-gūsugaḷ=allade gaṇḍu-gūsugaḷa vaṁsakk=aḍihāram=allade salladu, the second allade appears to be superfluous. But such usage might have been the prevalent idiom as attested to by the double usage of mēṇ (meaning ‘ or ’ and later on ‘ and ’) occurring in the sentences given below : (1) osege mēṇ munige mēṇ,^[1] (2) palige mēṇ pogalge mēṇ,^[2] (3) ose mēṇ muni mēṇ^[3], wherein the use of mēṇ twice is analogous to that of ‘ either ’ and ‘ or ’ occurring simultaneously in English syntax.

A few words of lexical interest occur in this record and deserve careful study : (1) mōra (line 9) seems to be connected with moraḍi^[4] and mōḍu (Tuḷu) both meaning ‘ a hillock ’ ; (2) oval from the contexts (lines 10, 13, 15) seems to mean ‘ branckish ’. It appears to be related to the first member ulai of the Tamil compound word ulai-maṇ, ula-maṇ meaning ‘ salty or brackish soil ’ ; (3) chāvugāmi (line 16) is derived from the Sanskrit chatur-grāmin ; (4) ūrmme (line 26) has been translated as ‘ excellent ’. This seems to descend from the Dravidian root ūru meaning ‘to increase ’, by the addition of the suffix -me used to form abstract nouns. As the final -u of the root is unstable and not radical the noun ūrme is directly formed, meaning ‘ increase, abundance ’. It is in this sense that Pampa has employed the word in the phrase vilāsad-urmegaḷ-oḷ^[5] and the reading here with short u in the beginning may be a mistake. The variant reading perme found in two of the manuscripts of this work is only a substitution of a synonym and is confirmatory of the meaning deduced above. (5) Aḍihāra (line 27) is obviously a corruption of the Sanskrit word adhikāra.

The importance of this record to the student of Kannaḍa prosody cannot be overstated. The Śārdūlavikrīḍita of the first verse and the Kandas following are quite familiar in Kannaḍa metrics ; but verse No. 4 is not so and is a rare specimen. It is called utsāha by the composer of the inscription and demands close scrutiny. Nāgavarma has defined the metre and the definition itself is the illustration.^[6] According to him the verse has four lines, each consisting of seven Brahma-gaṇas plus on guru, with rhyme in the second syllable. Of the four varieties of the Brahma-gaṇa (Symbols) only two containing three syllables or mātrās are used here and the other two consisting of four syllables or mātrās are eschewed altogether. The iambic variety (Symbol) though containing 3 mātrās does not enter into the scheme of Brahmagaṇa. The utsāha of the present record is in conformity with the above definition. The 1st, 3rd and 4th lines are quite regular and it is enough to show the scansion of one of them : viz., the first line

1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Ūra |	kaḍeya |	toreya |	taḍiya |	kariya |	kalla |	mōra |	diṁ
Symbols	Symbols	Symbols	Symbols	Symbols	Symbols	Symbols	Symbols

The tāḷa or accent falls on the first syllable of every foot. The second line, however, has an extra
long syllable in the first foot :

1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Puttūra |	poleya |	r-ippa |	kēri |	y-ovala |	nīra |	bhūmi |	yaṁ
Symbols

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^[1] Kavirājamārga (Ed. Pathak, Bangalore), I-134.
^[2] Ibid., I-135.
^[3] Pampa-Bhārata (Kannaḍa Sāhitya Parishad ed.), VI-26.
^[4] Kittel has spelt this word with a cerebral or alveolar -ra- in the middle but it is highly doubtful. Janna, a famous poet and composer of the Tarikere inscription of 1197 A. C. has in verse 52 definitely used the word with a
retroflex -ra- in the rhyming place.
^[5] Pampa-Bhārata (Kannaḍa Sāhitya Parishad ed.), I-106.
^[6] Chhandōmbudhi : Kāvya Kalānidhi edition, verse 258.