North Indian Inscriptions

TIRUKKALUKKUNRAM INSCRIPTIONS.

......In C. line 1, śrî of śrî-Kannara ; dê at the beginning of l. 2; l.3, śrî-Mûlast⺠(for Mûlasthâº) ; śa at the end of l. 5 ; l. 6, ºtr-âditya (for ºdr-âditya), pa of pan Mâhêśvara, and rakshai ; l. 7, ge of Geṅgai ; l. 9, sabhai.

......In D. l. 2, dê of dêva ; śrî-Mûlast⺠(for Mûlasthâº) at the end of l. 4; bhû of bhûmi at the beginning of l. 9 ; l. 10, agni ; l. 11, sabhai ; l. 12, dravya and śantr-âdiº (for chandr-âdiº) ; l. 13, tta of ºttarum and ºdharmma (for ºdharmma) ; l. 14, rakshi and ºdha[rmma] (for ºddharma) ; ge and gai of Geṅgai at the beginning of l. 15 ; the second pa of pâpa in l. 16.

A.— INSCRIPTION OF RAJAKESARIVARMAN.

......This inscription is dated in the 27th year of the reign of Râjakêsarivarman, and records the renewal of a grant which had been made by a king called Skandaśishya and confirmed by another king, Vâtâpi koṇḍa Naraśiṁgappôttaraiyar. Skandaśishya is probably synonymous with Skandavarman, a name which occurs repeatedly in the genealogy of an early branch of the Pallavas,¹ whose grants are dated from Palakkada, Daśanapura and Kâñchîpura.² Though we have no materials for identifying this king, yet it is certain that he was one of the predecessors of the other Pallava king who is mentioned in the inscription. This is Naraśiṁgappôttaraiyar,³ which is a Tamil form of the Sanskṛit name of the Pallava king Narasiṁhavarman. The epithet Vâtâpi koṇḍa, ‘who took Vâtâpi,’ which is given to the king, enables us to identify him with certainty with the Pallava king Narasiṁhavarman I. who is described both in the Kûram plates of Paramêśvaravarman I.⁴ and in the Udayêndiram plates of Nandivarman Pallavamalla⁵ as the destroyer of Vâtâpi and as the enemy of Pulikêśin (II.) alias Vallabharâja. The Singhalese chronicle Mahâvaṁsa also refers to this war between Narasiṁha and Vallabha, in which Mâṇavamma, one of the claimants to the kingdom of Ceylon, who was then residing in India, rendered substantial service to the Pallava king.⁶ The Periyapurâṇam, a Tamil work which narrates the lives of the sixty-three devotees of Śiva, and some of the statements made in which have been confirmed by recent epigraphical discoveries,⁷ refers to the destruction of Vâtâpi in the account of the life of one of the devotees, viz. Śiruttiṇḍa-Nâyanâr. It is reported that this devotee, who was originally a military man, “reduced to dust the old city of Vâtâpi”⁸ for his master, whose name is not given, but who must undoubtedly have been the Pallava king Narasiṁhavarman I. who destroyed Vâtâpi according to the Pallava inscriptions.

......According to the Periyapurâṇam, Śiruttoṇḍa-Nâyanâr was visited at his own village by the great Śaiva devotee Tiruñânasambandar,⁹ and the latter mentions Śiruttoṇḍa by name in one of his hymns.¹⁰ Thus Tiruñânasambandar was a contemporary of a general of the Pallava king Narasiṁhavarman I., whose enemy was the Western Chalukyya king Pulikêśin II. The
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......¹ Dr. Fleet’s Kanarese Dynasties, p. 16.
......² Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 398.
......³ [Pôta in Sanskṛit and pôttu in Tamil mean ‘the sprout (of a plant)’ and are thus synonymous with pallava,‘a sprout,’ from which the Amarâvatî pillar inscription (South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. No. 32, verse 8), derives the name of Pallava, the supposed ancestor of the Pallava dynasty.— E. H.]
......⁴ South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 152.
......⁵ Salem Manual, Vol. II. p. 359.
......⁶ L. C. Wijesinha’s Translation, pp. 41 to 43.
......⁷ See South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. II. Nos. 29, 40 and 43. In No. 40, there is a district reference to the traditional account of the life of Meypporuṇâyanâr, one of the sixty-three devotees, as preserved in the Periyapurâṇam ; and the various images that in Nos. 29 and 43 are said to have been set up, show clearly that the account of the lives of Chaṇḍêśvara and Śirâḷadêvar, respectively, as preserved in the Periyapurâṇam, must have been generally known during the time of Râjarâjadêva.
......⁸ Vâdâvi-tton-nagaran=tugaḷ=âga ; Śêkkilâr’s Periyapurâṇam, Madras edition of 1870, Part II. p. 316, verse 6.
......⁹ ibid. p. 318, verse 23 and 24.
......¹⁰ ibid. p. 93.