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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
UDAYENDIRAM PLATES OF NANDIVARMAN. ......The inscription professes to be one of the devout worshipper of Bhagavat (Vishṇu), the law-abiding Mahârâja of the Pallavas, the illustrious Nandivarman (l. 10), a member of the Bhâradvâja gôtra, who is described as the son of the Mahârâja Skandavarman (l. 6), the son’s son of the Mahârâja Siṁhavarman (l. 4), and the great-grandson of the Râjâ Skandavarman1 (l. 2). It informs us (in ll. 11-14) that, form the victorious Kâñchîpura (l. 1.), Nandivarman gave the village of Kâñchivâyil and four pieces of forest-land, situated in the district (râshṭra) of Aḍêyâra, to a Brâhmaṇa inhabitant of Kâñchivâyil, named Kuḷaśarman, who belonged to the Kauśika gôtra and to the Vêdic school of the Taittirîyas, and whose sûtra was the Pravachana.2 The inscription further (in ll. 15-18) contains an admonition not to levy taxes on the land so granted, threatens with corporal punishment those who should transgress the king’s commands, and cities two of the ordinary imprecatory verses ; and it closes (in l. 19) with the statement that this documents (paṭṭikâ) was issued on the fifth (lunar day) of the bright half of Vaiśâkha, in the first year of the victorious reign (apparently of Nandivarman). ......The Tamil endorsement on plate i.a runs thus :— “In the twenty-sixth year (of the reign) of Madirai-koṇḍa Kô-Parakêsarivarman,3— we, (the members of) the assembly of Kâñchivâyil, alias Iganmaraimaṅgalam, and we, (the members of ) the assembly of Udayachandramaṅgalam, (have agreed as follows) :— We, (the inhabitants of ) these two villages, having joined (and) having become one, shall prosper as one village from this (date).”
......Without the endorsement, this inscription is very similar to the Uruvupalli grant of the Pallava Yuvamahârâja Vishṇugôpavarman, published by Dr. Fleet in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. V. pp. 50 ff. Indeed, but for the circumstance that our grant was issued ( not from Palakkada, but) from Kâñchîpura, and that the rulers mentioned in it are Skandavarman, Siṁhavarman, Skandavarman, and Nandivarman (instead of Skandavarman, Vîravarman, Skandavarman, and Vishṇugôpavarman), lines 1-10 of it read much like a mutilated copy lines 1-16 of the Uruvupalli grant ; and in a similar, though perhaps less striking manner,4 lines 15-18 of Nandivarman’s grant may be said to resemble lines 28-32 of the grant of Vishṇugôpavarman. This fact has not escaped the Rev. T. Foulkes, and the conclusion which he has felt inclined to draw from it, apparently is, that both grants were issued by the same prince, and that, accordingly, the Vîravarman and Vishṇugôpavarman5 of the one grant are identical with the Siṁhavarman and Nandivarman of the other. I myself am of opinion that the present inscription must, on palæographical grounds, be assigned to a later period than the Uruvupalli grant ; and, considering it suspicious that, at different periods, there should have been two Pallava princes whose fathers and great-grandfathers were called Skandavarman, and that, moreover, two sets of four consecutive princes should have been described in almost identical terms, and taking also into account the extreme slovenliness of the wording of Nandivarman’s grant, I cannot suppress the belief that this grant may be a spurious documents,6 the writer of which took for his model either the Uruvupalli grant of Vishṇugôpavarman itself or some other inscription of the same prince. ......The Tamil endorsement of this inscription is practically identical with the endorsement at the
end of the grant of Nandivarman Pallavamalla, published by the Rev. T. Foulkes in the Indian ......1 For a translation of the various epithets applied to these kings, which for the historian are quite worthless,
see Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 52.
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