North Indian Inscriptions

RANGANATHA INSCRIPTION OF SUNDARA-PANDYA.

flanked by two fishes, one on the left and one on the right. The carp (kayal or śêl) was the device on the banner of the Pâṇḍya king,¹ who was, therefore, called Mînavan, ‘the bearer of the fish-banner.’ It appears on many Pâṇḍya coins as the crest of the king.

......The inscription belongs to the time of king Sundara-Pâṇḍya (verses 1, 12, 21, 23, 25, 26), who resided at Madhurâ (verse 2), belonged to the race of the Moon (verse 8), and was styled “the Sun among kings” (verse 3 and passim) and “the Chief of the world”² (verses 7, 8, 15). The only historical incidents to which the inscription refers, are that Sundara-Pâṇḍya took Śriraṅga from a king who is designated “the Moon of Karṇâṭa,” and whom he appears to have killed (verse 1), and that he plundered the capital of the Kâṭhaka king (verses 4 and 8). As these same two enemies are mentioned in the Jambukêśvara and Tirukkalukkunram inscriptions, in which Sundara-Pâṇḍya is called “the dispeller of the Kaṇâṭa king” and “the fever to the elephant (which was) the Kâṭhaka (king),” we need not hesitate to identify the Sundara-Pâṇḍya of the subjoined inscription with Jaṭâvarman, alias Sundara-Pâṇḍyadêva, who ascended the throne in A.D. 1250 or 1251.³ The Kâṭhaka king whom he defeated, was probably one of the Gajapati kings of Orissa, whose capital was Kaṭaka (Cuttack).⁴ The “Moon of Karṇâṭa,” who was conquered by Sundara-Pâṇḍya, has probably to be identified with the Poysaḷa (or Hoysaḷa) king Sômêśvara, the first part of whose name means ‘the Moon.’ A copper-plate grant of this king, which is preserved in the Bangalore Museum, was issued on the new-moon tithi of Phâlguna of Śaka-Saṁvat 1175 current, the Paridhâvi saṁvatsara (1st March, A.D. 1253), the day of an eclipse of the sun, “while he was residing in the great capital, named Vikramapura, which had been built, in order to amuse his mind, in the Chôla country, which he had conquered by the power of his arm.”⁵ The site of this Vikramapura can be fixed with the help of an inscription of the same Poysaḷa king Vîra-Sômêśvaradêva in the Jambukêśvara temple, in which the king mentions “(the image of) the lord Poysaḷêśvara, which we have set up in Kaṇṇanûr, alias Vikramapuram, in (the district of) Râjarâjavaḷanâḍu.”⁶ Kaṇṇanûr, is the name of a village at a distance of 5 miles north of Śrîraṅgam. On a visit to this Kaṇṇanûr, I was shown the traces of the moat of an extensive fort. On the branch road to Maṇṇachchanellûr, part of the surrounding rampart was still visible over the ground. “The Nawâb” is supposed to have carted away most of the stones of the enclosure when building (or repairing) the Trichinopoly fort. Besides the present village of Kaṇṇanûr, the fort included a temple which

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......¹ Compare verse 27 of the present inscription.
......² The Tamil equivalent of this surname occurs on certain Pâṇḍya coins which I attribute to Sundara-Pâṇḍya ; Ind. Ant., Vol. XXI. p. 324 f.
......³ Ind. Ant. Vol. XXI. pp. 122 and 343. According to Mr. Dikshit’s calculations, the date of the Jambukêśvara inscription is the 28th April, A.D. 1260, and that the Tirukkalukkunram inscription the 29th April, A.D. 1259 ; ibid. Vol. XXII. p. 221.
......⁴ ibid. Vol. XX. p. 390.
......⁵ Mr. Rice’s Mysore Inscriptions, p. 322. The original (Plate iv. a) reads :—

Dr. Fleet kindly informs me that, according to von Oppolzer’s Canon der Finsternisse, pp. 236, 237, and Plate 118, a total eclipse of the sun actually took place on that day, and that the central line of the eclipse ran right across nearly the middle of India.
......⁶ Line 5 f. :— Râjarâjataḷanâṭṭu=Kkaṇṇanûr=âna Vikki[ra]mapurattu nâm elund=aruḷivitta uḍaiyâr Pôśaîśvaram=u[ḍaiyâr]. The same inscription refers to four images which Sômêśvara had set up in the Jambukêśvara temple,— Vallâḷîśvara, Padumalîśvara, Vîra-Nâraśiṅgîśvara, and Sômalîśvara. These were evidently called after (a) his grandfather Ballâḷa II. ; (b) his grandmother Padmalâ ; (c) his father Narasiṁha II. ; and (d) his queen Sômalâ.