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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA the sense of vēyi meaning ‘ a thousand ’ as in vē-guḷḷu, vē-seruvulu,[1] etc., it may be construed that Vēnāḍu[2] or Vēyi-nāḍu was a 1000-division. The taxes, Dogararāchappaṇṇu, Paḍevāḷapaṇṇu, Paḍiyēripaṇṇu and Sandhivigrahipaṇṇu are said to have been excluded from the king’s award or sthiti, which, as record specifies, comprised of all the minor taxes (chiru-deralu) inclusive of the tivuldesa. By their very context, the four taxes which were excluded from the award came under the major taxes. In Dogarāchapaṇṇu, the term doga apparently stands for yuva. The tax might be understood as one paid for the maintenance of the office of the Yuvarāja. Paḍevāḷappaṇṇu seems obviously to be a levy for maintaining the Paḍevaḷa, i.e. the commander of the army ; Paḍiyēri (probably meaning Paḍiyari, i.e. pratihārī), and Sandhivigrahi, after whom the next two taxes are named, were important officers and the taxes raised in their name were perhaps meant for maintaining their offices. All minor taxes, which were exempted from payment according of the terms of the award, were, it is stated, headed by the tivuldesa (lines 4-5). The meaning of this expression is, however, obscure.[3]
The third section of the record comprising lines 13-15 is highly interesting. Perhaps this too, like the second section (lines 10-12), was at first omitted by oversight from the main record and was added later on. This seems to account for its being engraved separately on another part of the wall, away from its place in the main record. The passage may be literally rendered thus :─ ‘If a man kills (both) the woman and the man caught red-handed in the act of adultery, there is no punishment (for him). If, instead of killing (them), he distresses[4] (only) the woman, either by cutting off her nose or by a milder punishment (miṇṇaka), t]hey (i.e. the donees) are to collect a fine of 64 gadyas from the man.’ We have perhaps to understand here that the person who commits the murder is the husband of the woman and that he does so under grave provocation. The right of levying this fine seems to have formed part of the award (sthiti) conferred on the kāṁpus of Vēnāḍu, for the word gonuvāru at the end of the passage apparently refers not to the government but to the donees who obtained the sthiti from the king, namely, the kāṁpus of Vēnāḍu. The cutting off of the nose of an adulteress and death to an adulterer are the punishments prescribed in an inscription from Kōgaḷi in the Bellary District, dated in Śaka 914 (992 A. D.) in the reign of Chālukya Āhavamalla.[5] It is noteworthy that this punishment for adultery imposed] on persons of either sex conforms to that prescribed for the offence in the Arthaśāstra.[6] TEXT[7] 1 Svasty=anēka-samara-saṁghaṭṭan-ōpalabdha-vijayalakshmī-samāliṁgita-viśāḷa-
______________________________________________________________ [1] above, Vol. XI, p. 346, text lines 21-22.
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