South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

to the maṭhikā. The svādhyāyikas of the Mahā-parshad or Kautuka-maṭhikā of Samyāna are mentioned several times in the Chinchani plate of the reign of Rāshṭrakūṭa Kṛishṇa III as well as in the last of the three grants edited hare. One of the svādhyāyikas, Chīhaḍa by name, received the gift which was made as a namasya-vṛitti (i.e. a permanent tax-free holding), free from all obligations. People were warned not to cause any obstacle in the enjoyment of the oil-mill by the donee. It is stated that the mill was granted together with the oil and oil-cakes (ghaṭika for Sanskrit khalika) produced by it probably meaning that the produces of the mill were free from taxation like the mill itself.

Lines 21-28 quote some of the usual imprecatory and benedictory stanzas together with certain prose passages of similar import, which are both generally met with in the Śilāhāra charters. The concluding part of the record in lines 29-32 states, in the style of the Śilāhāra grants, how the donor made this decree known through the language of the charter as drafted by the scribe and how the authoritative character of the grant could not be challenged on the basis of mistakes creeping into the text. The sentence beginning with mataṁ mama in this section refers in the usual way to the signature of the donor put on the original document later incised on the plates. But a peculiarity of the present inscription is that Chāmuṇḍarāja’s name is mentioned here together with a string of epithets. One of these refers to the 64 black horses received by him from an unspecified source. In the passage in question, Tribhuvana-nīla Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara Chāmuṇḍarāja is represented as the son of Āhava-nīla Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara Vijja-rāṇaka. The charter is stated to have been written by Dhruva Mammalaiya. The official designation Dhruva is a contraction of Dhruv-ādhikaraṇika, etc., which indicate an officer in charge of the collection of the royal share of the produce from the farmers.

The importance of the inscription lies in the fact that it introduces Chāmuṇḍarāja, ruler of Saṁyāna under Śilāhāra Chhinturāja (Chhittarāja), as also Vijja-rāṇaka, father of Chāmuṇḍarāja and probably an earlier ruler of Saṁyāna under the same Śilāhāra king. The family to which Vijja and Chāmuṇḍa belonged is not mentioned. Since, however, the name Vijja-rāṇaka or Vijjala was also borne by the Mōḍha chief of Saṁyāna who issued the other two charters to be edited below, it is not impossible that the two Vijja-rāṇakas belonged to the same family. Thus Chāmuṇḍa may have belonged of the Mōḍha dynasty. But it should be admitted that the relationship that may have existed between Chāmuṇḍa, who issued the present grant in 1034 A.D., and Vijja or Vijjala, who issued the other two grants a few years later in 1048 and 1053 A.D., cannot be determined without further light being thrown on the subject by future discoveries. Of the geographical name mentioned in the inscription, Tagarapura, to which the Śilāhāras appear to have traced their origin, is now generally identified with Ter in the Naldrug District of the former Hyderabad State.^[1] Chāmuṇḍa is stated to have been ruling over the pattana or town of Saṁyāna (elsewhere called only Saṁyāna), which had been granted to him by Śilāhāra Chhinturāja (Chhittarāja). Saṁyāna-pattana is of course the present town of Sanjan in the Thana District. But the exact extent of the land under Chāmuṇḍa’s rule cannot be determined, although it may have been much smaller than the Saṁyāna-maṇḍala under Madhumati Sugatipa of the Chinchani plates of the time of Indra III and the Saṁyāna-pattana 700 mentioned in the second of the two sets of Chinchani plates of Mōḍha Vijja, to be edited below. Chāmuṇḍa is also stated to have destroyed certain ruler or rulers of the Lāṭa country in the present Nausari-Broach region. The inscription does not state where the Kautuka-maṭhikā was situated ; but we know from the Chinchani plates of the time of Indra III that the mathikā was built by Kautuka and others at Saṁyāna itself.

________________________________________________

^[1] Cf. JRAS, 1901, pp. 537 ff.