North Indian Inscriptions

TIRUKKALUKKUNRAM INSCRIPTIONS.

approximate date derived from this synchronism for the great devotee is confirmed by the fact that he was a younger contemporary of another devotee, called Tirunâvukkaraiyar or Appar, who was first persecuted and then patronised by an unnamed Pallava king. One of this king’s surnames appears to have been Guṇadhara, because a feudatory of his is said to have built a temple of Śiva and called it Guṇadaravîchcharam, i.e. Guṇadhara-Îśvara, probably after his overlord.¹ In an archaic inscription in the cave at Vallam near Chingleput, which will be published in South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. II. Part III., reference is made to a king called Mahêndrapôtarâja alias Guṇabhara, whom Dr. Hultzsch has identified with either of the two Mahêndravarman’s mentioned in the Udayêndiram plates of Nandivarman Pallavamalla.² As the difference between the names Guṇadhara and Guṇabhara is very slight, Mahêndrapôtarâja alias Guṇabhara of the Vallam inscription may be identified with Guṇadhara, who, according to the Periyapurâṇam, first persecuted and then patronised Tirunâvukkaraiyar. As this devotee was an elder contemporary of Tiruñânasambandar, who, as I have shown, lived during the time of the Pallava king Narasiṁhavarman I., it is clear that the Mahêndrapôtarâja alias Guṇabhara of the Vallam inscription, whom I propose to identify with the Guṇadhara of the Periyapurâṇam, could only be Mahêndravarman I., the father of Narasiṁhavarman I.³ Thus we arrive at the conclusion that the two great Śaiva devotees Tirunâvukkaraiyar and Tiruñśnasambandar, whose time has been the subject of controversy for a long time,⁴ were contemporaries of the two Pallava king Mahêndravarman I. and Narasiṁhavarman I., respectively. This result is important for the history of Tamil literature, as it fixed the date of two thirds of the collection of Śaiva hymns, which goes by the name of Dêvâram and which is ascribed to Tirunâvukkaraiyar, Tiruñânasambandar, and Sundaramûrti-Nâyanâr. The date of the last of the three authors cannot yet be settled ; but he must have been later than the two others, because he refers to them by name in the hymn which is known as the Tiruttoṇḍattogai.⁵

......As regards the king Râjakêsarivarman during whose reign the subjoined inscription was engraved, we do not possess sufficient data for his identification. The name Râjakêsarivarman suggests that the king was a Chôḷa, because the names Râjakêsarin and Parakêsarin are said to have been borne alternately by the Chôḷa kings⁶ and are actually applied to a larger number of them in their inscriptions.⁷ The archaic characters in which the subjoined inscription is engraved, show that, if the king was a Chôḷa, he was probably not a successor but an ancestor of Parântaka I., This conclusion is supported by the comparatively frequent occurrence of the virâma or, as it is called in Tamil, the puḷḷi, which is marked in no less than twenty cases in this short inscription, while in a pretty long inscription of Madirai koṇḍa Parakêsarivarman, i.e. Parântaka I., the puḷḷi occurs only five times.⁸ The occasional occurrence of the puḷḷi has been noticed also in two other archaic inscriptions,⁹ but this sign is never met with in the inscriptions
__________________________________________________________________________________________

......¹ ibid. Part I. p. 184, verses 145 and 146.
......² Dr. Hultzsch’s Annual Report for 1892-93, p. 2, paragraph 7.
......³ See the Table of synchronisms on page 11 of South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I.
......⁴ Madras Christian College Magazine, Vol. IX. Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 9.
......⁵ i.e. ‘the list of the devotees (of Śiva).’ Sundaramûrti is said to have sung this hymn in the temple at Tiruvârûr.
......⁶ Archæological Survey of Southern India, Vol. IV. p. 206. l. 19 f.
......⁷ See Dr. Hultzsch’s Annual Report for 1891-92. pp. 4 to 6.
......⁸ South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 118.
......⁹ In the Tamil portion of the Kûram plates of Paramêśvaravarman I., published in South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I., the puḷḷi occurs in combination with seven letters of the Tamil alphabet. In the inscription of Nandippôttaraiyan, published in the Madras Christian College Magazine, Vol. VIII. p. 98 ff., the puḷḷi is marked in six cases. In these two inscriptions as well as in the one quoted in the preceding note, the puḷḷi is denoted by a vertical stroke placed over the letter, while, in the Tirukkalukkaunram inscription of Râjakêsarivarman, it is denoted by a peculiar crooked line which is not always uniform in its course.