South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

ALAGUM INSCRIPTION OF ANANTAVARMAN ; REGNAL YEAR 62

vaishṇava, which show that he was a devotee of both the gods Śiva and Vishnu. His family belonged to the Kāśyapa gōtra and to the pañch-ārshēya-pravara (i.e., having five sages as pravaras or distinguished members of the gōtra in question). The Kāśyapa gōtra, however, is known to have only three pravaras, viz., Kāśyapa, Āvatsāra and Naidhruva. Pañch-ārshēya thus appears to be a mistake for try-ārshēya. In dealing with the ancestry of Kāmāṇḍi, the inscription rather curiously speaks of Pitāmaha Pōtāṇḍi, of the former’s son Bhīmāṇḍi and of the latter’s vaṁś-ōdbhava or descendant Kāmāṇḍi. It seems that Pōtāṇḍi was the pitāmaha or grandfather of Kāmāṇḍi and that Bhīmāṇḍi was his father inspite of the fact that he is said to have been merely a descendant of Bhīmāṇḍi. This seems to be suggested by the word pitāmaha used in connection with the name of Pōtāṇḍi, by the similar formations of the tree names, viz., Pōtāṇḍi, Bhīmāṇḍi and Kāmāṇḍi, and also by the fact that there is hardly any meaning in mentioning only two distant ancestors of the donor when the established custom throughout India was generally to mention only his father and grandfather. It may, however, not be impossible that Kāmāṇḍi was actually the son of a brother of Bhīmāṇḍi who later adopted him as his own son. That is possibly why Kāmāṇḍi is called a vaṁś-ōdbhava and not exactly a putra of Bhīmāṇḍi. It may be recalled in this connection that the Śailōdbhava king Ayaśōbhīta I of Kōṅgōda in Orissa is described in some records in prose as the son of Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman I, but in others in verse as merely a descendant of the latter.1 A very interesting information about Kāmāṇḍi’s family given in the record is that it hailed from a village, the name of which reads like Kaḍamvura, in the Chōḷa country, which was the modern Tanjore-Trichinopoly region of South India.

Kāmāṇḍi is said to have purchased with his own money a hala of land styled Kapālēśvara in the village of Alaguṁma which formed a part of the Rāmaṅga vishaya and made it an endowment in favour of the maṭha of the god Garttēśvaradēva. The purchase is said to have been witnessed by certain honest prajā-lōkas apparently meaning the people of the locality. The object of the grant was two-fold. In the first place, it was to provide food to an ascetic, possibly living in the maṭha referred to, whose name may have been Bhij or Abhij. Secondly, three pravarttas of paddy were allotted for providing naivēdya or the daily ceremonial offering to the god Garttēśvaradēva. In this description of the grant, the word hala, known also from other sources, has been used to indicate a piece of land of uncertain area. The exact weight of a pravartta of paddy is likewise unknown.2

In addition to the piece of land granted, a sum of money was deposited with the local adhikārins (possibly superintendents of the temple) who are said to have been maintaining the pallī-dēva, literally ‘village deity’ (possibly meaning Garttēśvara), for providing an akhaṇḍa or perpetual lamp, apparently in the temple, in honour of the god Garttēśvara. The lamp was expected to be the kula-tāraṇa (i.e., a thing that ensures easy crossing of the sea of saṁsāra for the members of one’s family) of “ this kāparyaka ” probably meaning Kāmāṇḍi himself. The word kāparyaka appears to be a mistake for a word like kāpyaka meaning ‘ a penitent’. The amount granted in this connection is described as a hundred chūrṇīs added by five purāṇas. The word chūrṇī usually means a hundred cowrie-shells, which purāṇa was the old silver kārshāpaṇa usually regarded as equal to 1280 cowrie-shells. According to Oriya lexicons,3 however, both the words chūrṇī and purāṇa are recognised in the sense of kāhāṇa (Sanskrit kārshāpaṇa) which was equal to 1280 cowrie-shells. There is no doubt that the words have been used in the same sense also in the record under

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^[1] See Successors of the Sātavāhanas, pp. 400 f. Cf. also ibid., p. 250 and note.
^[2] Is it Oriya pauṭi which is equal to ten maunds ?
^[3] Cf. Pramōda Abhidhāna, s.v. chūrṇi and purāṇa. The Mehar plate (above, Vol. XXVII, p. 189, text line 35 ; cf p. 191, note 5) spells the word as chūrṇī and uses it as a synonym of purāṇa. The same word also occurs in line 59 of the Vaṅgīya Sāhitya Parishat plate of Viśvarūpasēna (Inscriptions of Bengal, Vol. III, p. 147), although it was wrongly read as chūrṇā.