North Indian Inscriptions

NADUPURU GRANT OF ANNA-VEMA.

plates (vv. 9 and 11), Hêmâdri, the author of the Dânakhaṇḍa, is repeatedly referred to (vv. 5, 9 and 17).

......Anna-Vêma’s sister, Vêmasâni, is stated to have been the queen of a certain Nallanûṅka (v. 16), whose name I have not found elsewhere. For her spiritual benefit, Anna-Vêma granted to twenty Brâhmaṇas the village of Nâḍupûru (v. 18), which received the surname Vêmapura in commemoration of Vêmasâni’s own name (v. 19). The grant was made in the temple of Vijayêśvara on the bank of the Gautamî (i.e. Gôdâvarî) river (v. 18). The temple of Vijayêśvara is probably identical with the village of Vijayêśvaram in the Tanuku tâlukâ of the Gôdâvarî district, which is situated “close to the west end of the Gôdâvarî anicut” and contains “two old temples, held very sacred.”¹ The village garnted, Naḍupûru, was situated on the eastern bank of the Gôdâvarî (l. 43 f.). A number of other villages, which I am unable to identify, are mentioned in the description of its boundaries (ll. 39 to 46). The Madras Survey Map of the Gôdâvarî district shows a village, named Naḍupûḍi in the Narsâpur tâlukâ on the right bank of the Gôdâvarî, and another village, named Vêmavaram, about 5½ miles S.-S.-W. of Naḍupûḍi. I hardly think that one of these two villages can be identical with Naḍupûru alias Vêmapuram, which must be looked for on the opposite bank of the river. The country or district to which Naḍupûru belonged, was called Kôṇasthala (v. 18). This may be the same as the Kônamaṇḍala, which had been ruled over before the time of Anna-Vêma by a dynasty of chiefs whose names are given in the second inscription on the Piṭhâpuram pillar and in inscriptions at Pâlakôl,² and with Kônaśîma, a local name of the Gôdâvarî delta.³

......The date of the grant (v. 18) was the day of a lunar eclipse on Kârttikî (i.e. the full-moon tithi of the month of Kârttika) in the Śâka year 1296 (in numerical words and in figures) Śaka-Saṁvat 1296 as a current yearwould correspond to A.D. 1373-74, and as an expired year to A.D. 1374-75. Mr. Dikshit kindly informs me that both in 1373 and in 1374 A.D. there was a lunar eclipse in Bhâdrapada, but not in Kârttika, and that no lunar eclipse in Kârttika is possible in the years 1375 to 1379 and 1362 to 1369 ; but that there were lunar eclipses in Kârttika of A.D. 1370 and 1371, and that a very small lunar eclipse, not visible anywhere in India, is possible in Âśvina (the month preceding Kârttika) on Wednesday, the 13th October, A.D. 1372.

......A Telugu inscription on the wall of the garden of the Koppêśvara temple at Palivela⁴ in the Amalâpuram tâlukâ of the Gôdâvarî district records a grants of land by a servant (leṅka) of Ana-Vêmâya-Reḍḍi on the 5th tithi of the bright fortnight of Phâlguṇa of the Śaka year 1299.

......The Vanapalli plates and the Naḍupûra grant furnish the following short pedigree of the Reḍḍi dynasty of Koṇḍavîḍû─

1. Prola.
2. Vema.

3. Anna-Vote.             4. Anna-Vema or Ana-Vema )        Vemasani; married to
                                   Saka 1296 and 1300).                Nallanunka.

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......¹ Mr. Sewell’s Lists of Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 38.
......² See my Annual Report for 1893-94, pp. 3 and 6.
......³ Gôdâvarî Manual, p. 5.
......⁴ No. 505 of 1893 in my Annual Report for 1893-94. Another Telugu inscription in the Bhîmêśvara temple at Drâkshârâma (No. 446 of 1893) records the erection of building by Ana-Vêmu in Sakavarsha 1809, Vaiśâk ba śuº 10 ; but it remains uncertain if this Ana-Vêmu is identical with Anna-Vêma of Koṇḍavîḍu.