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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA and linguistic features, on one of its faces.[1] Another inscription equally interesting, although belonging to a much later period, describes this village as an agrahāra granted to the eight renowned poets (ashṭa-diggaja-kavīśvarulu) by king Kṛishṇadēvarāya[2] of Vijayanagara. The language of the inscription is Telugu written in the Telugu-Kannaḍa script which is regular for the period to which it belongs, i.e., 8th century A.C. However, some noteworthy features in its palaeography serve as important clues to arrive at a more precise date for the record which does not otherwise furnish any details in this regard barring the regnal year of the king. A careful comparison of the forms of individual letters of this record with those of the Turimeḷḷa and the Dimmaguḍi epigraphs, both of Vikramāditya I[3], reveals the following facts : (1) the Dravidian r in our record has taken its later from already observed in the Dimmaguḍi inscription whereas it still retains its earlier four-chambered form in the Turimeḷḷa record, (2) m shows a more developed stage in its formation in this record than in that of Dimmaguḍi, (3) j (lines 4, 5, 7, 10 and 23) occurs consistently throughout the record in its later form, a feature that is absent in the other two records. The engraver seems to have inadvertently fallen into the old style in carving this letter in line 5, but probably corrected his mistake by adding the loop at the top of the old j thereby leaving a permanent evidence marking the transitional period when the later form of this letter came to be used ; but the older form had not yet been given up or forgotten and (4) the subscript r has no longer the vertical stroke or dent within it in its lower half but only a horizontal bar. On these counts therefore this record may reasonably be assigned to a date later than either the Turimeḷḷa or the Dimmaguḍi inscription which I have ascribed to Vikramāḍitya I. In other words, the Tippalūru record is to be assigned to Vikramāditya II and it belongs to the first year of his reign.
The inscription shows some peculiar orthographical and linguistic features. The use of the sonant dh in place of the surd th in pridhivī (line 7) and of the wrong class nasal ṅ in place of ṁ in saṅvaº (line 8) may be noted. Attention may also be drawn to the words ēḷu (line 11), pāḷa (line 10) and gaḷā nrēni (line 26) with the cerebral ḷ. In vachchuvāṇru (line 26) and yuktuṇragu (line 31), the use of ṇ in the ligatures ṇra and ṇru is of particular interest. It is a common feature in early Telugu records that this ligature occurs invariably with the dental n as in Rēgonra, Kolchukonra,[5] Tānrikonra,[6] Kanrēra,[7] lachchinavānru,[8] samyuktunrugu,[8] vachchuvānru,[9] jampinavānru,[9] Satyādityunru,[10] Puṇyakumārunru,[11] etc. In the first four words denoting place names, the components ºkonra, Tānri and ºkanru show the persistence of the earlier forms common to the Dravidian group of languages which are prevalent in Tamil even to day. The change of the superscript from n to ṇ found in the ligature under discussion perhaps marks a stage in its development from its early form nr to its later form ṇḍ. The suffixes ºvānru and ºyuktunru are obviously in singular in contrast with the plural suffix ºvāru in jūchinavāru in lines 24-25 which has for its subject several individuals whose names are enumerated in lines 22-24. The term gulichina in gulichinavāru (line 19) in the operative part of the record seems to stand for kolichina meaning ‘ measured ’, and kulopiñchina (i.e., kolipiñchina) is the causal form of kolichina. ____________________________________________________
[1] Ibid., No. 283 page 79 ; above, Vol. XXVIII, plate opp. p. 229, inscription F and p. 233.
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