South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

No. 41─TINGALUR INSCRIPTION OF KO-NATTAN VIKRAMACHOLA, SAKA 967

(1 plate)

K. A. NILAKANTA SASTRI, MYSORE, AND T. N. SUBRAMANIAM, MADRAS

Tiṅgaḷūr is a small village about 7½ miles north-west of the Perundurai Railway Station in the Erode Taluk of the Coimbatore District, Madras State, and forms along with Vijayamaṅgalam, another village about 4 miles to its south, one of the few Jaina centres in the Tamil country. Besides the Jaina temple of Pushpanātha, it contains two other temples, one for Śiva (Chandramauḷīśvara) and the other for Vishṇu (Alagiyarāja-Perumāḷ).^[1] In inscriptions, the Jaina temple is known as Chandravasati,^[2] while the Śiva temple is referred to as that of Chandrapura-uḍaiyār^[3] or Chandrapurēśvaram-uḍauyār.^[4] These appear to have been so called after the name of the village Tiṅgaḷūr, the Tamil word tiṅgaḷ meaning the moon (chandra).

This village which lies in the heart of the Koṅgu country is mentioned in the Śendalai pillar inscriptions as one of the several places where the Muttaraiyan chief, Perumbiḍugu Muttaraiyan alias Śuvaran Māran, fought and gained victories,^[5] At Tiṅgaḷūr he is said to have captured the elephants of the Pāṇḍya.^[6] It will thus be seen that the antiquity of the village dated from the 8th or 9th century of the Christian era.

The subjoined inscription,^[7] which is found engraved on the door post of the kitchen in the Jaina temple at Tiṅgaḷūr, is now edited here from an inked impression, kindly placed at our disposal by the Government Epigraphist for India.

This short record consists of 21 lines of writing neatly ruled out between each line ; the first line containing the words svasti śrī is written in the Grantha script. The remaining twenty lines are in the Tamil language and script.

The way in which the numerical figures for the Śaka year 967 are written in the record deserves notice. The figure for 9 is followed by the symbol for 100 as usual in all the other inscriptions from the Tamil country. After that the figures for 6 and 7 are written consecutively without the symbol for 10 intervening, as if these figures have been written according to the system of decimal notation. It is true that numerals are found expressed in decimal notation in the North Indian inscriptions from about 600 A.D.; but it has not been found in the South, particularly in the Tamil inscriptions. It may, therefore, be taken that the symbol for 10 has been left out inadvertently.

The orthographical peculiarities found in the inscription are few. The use of the pronoun nān in the first person singular as found in this inscription, though not unknown to the records

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^[1] ARSIE for the year 1905 contains 17 inscriptions (Nos. 602-618) secured from this place ; excepting one record (No. 602) of Hoysala Vīra-Rāmanātha and another (No. 617) of Jaṭāvarman Sundarapāṇḍya, all the others belong to various kings of the Koṅgu line of rulers.
^[2] Cf. the inscription edited here.
^[3] ARSIE, 1905, No. 603.
^[4] Ibid., No. 605.
^[5] Above, Vol., XIII, p. 137, where the editor has identified the place with the village of the same name situated about 8½ miles north-east of Tañjāvūr and well-known as the native village of Appūdi-Nāyanār, one of the sixty-three Śaiva devotees. But the inscription describes the place as “ Tiṅgaḷūr where descending clouds [rest]” and this description will be appropriate only to the village in the Coimbatore District to the west of Śendalai and not to the village of the same name in the Tanjavur District to the east of Śendalai.
^[6] Ibid., p. 147, Inscription F on the third pillar.
^[7] ARSIE, 1905, No.614.