South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

of Śivaskandavarman who issued from the city of Kāñchī the Mayidavolu plates^[1] as a Yuvama- hārāja (crown-prince) and the Hirahadagalli plates^[2] as a Dharmamahārājadhirāja. While the first grant was issued very probably during the reign of Śivaskandavarman’s father, the second records the renewal of a grant originally made by his father mentioned as māhārāja-bappa-svāmin (i.e. the lord who was the issuer’s father and enjoyed the title Mahārāja) without quoting his personal name.^[3] The first record shows that Andhrāpatha with its headquarters at Chānyakaṭa (Amarāvati near Dharaṇīkōṭa in the Guntur District) formed a part of the Pallava empire when Śivakshandavarman was the crown-prince apparently during the reign of his father. The present inscription seems to suggest the presence of king Siṁhavarman in the said area. It is thus not impossible that it was he who extended Pallava power in the Krishna-Guntur region and annexed it to the dominions of the Pallavas of Kāñchī. Considering the proximity between the date of the inscription under study (i.e. about the close of the third century A.D.) and that of the Mayidavolu and Hirahadagalli plates of Śivaskandavarman (i.e. about the first quarter of the fourth century A.D.), as suggested by their landuage,^[4] it is also possible to conjecture that Siṁhavarman was the father and immediate predecessor of Śivaskandavarman. The close resemblance between the palaeography and language of the present epigraph and those of the Ikshvāku records would further suggest that it was the Ikshvākus who were supplanted from the Krishna-Guntur area by the Pallavas about the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century A.D. The presence of Pallava Siṁhavarman in the vicinity of the Ikshvāku capital of Vijayapura situated in the Nāgārjunikoṇḍa valley, as suggested by the inscription under study, seems to show that it was he who was responsible for the destruction of that city together with its Buddhist establishments. The bull crest of the Pallavas, as indicated by their coins and the seals attached to their copper-plate charters,^[5] appears to point to their Śaiva inclinations. In this connection it may be noted that many of the Pallava kings who flourished between the fifth and eighth centuries A.D. claimed to have been Kaliyuga-dosh- āvasanna-dharm-oddharaṇa-nitya-sannaddha which seems to refer to the fact that they were deter mined to revitalise their Brahmanical faith which had been encroached upon by heretical doctrines like Buddhism during the age of the Later Sātavāhanas and the Ikshvākus.^[6]

TEXT^[7]

1 Siddha[ṁ] || Bhāradāya-sago[ttena] . . . . .^[8][dha]reṇa Palavāṇaṁ Dī[ha]-
2 vaṁmaṇa-ap[p]aṇo vejayike .. . . . [la^[9]-va]edhaṁ(rdha)ntike saṁ(sa)nti-sathi-^[10]
3 yāyaṇaṁ kātūṇa Bhaga[vato] . . . ^[11] [Jīvaś]ivasāmisa tethik[ā]-

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^[1] Select Inscriptions, I p. 433 ff.
^[2] Ibid., pp. 437 ff.
^[3] Some scholars take Bappa to be the personal name of Śivaskandavarman’s father. But the use of the word in similar passages in numerous inscriptions clearly goes against the suggestion. Cf. Select Inscription, p. 438, note 3.
^[4] Cf. above, Vol. XXIX, pp. 170-71.
^[5] Cf. ibid., Vol. XXIV, pp. 296-97 ; Vol. XXIX, p. 90.
^[6] See The Successors of the Sātavāhanas, pp. 196-97 ; below, p. 94.
^[7] From impressions.
^[8]About four aksharas damaged here cannot be restored with certainty.
^[9] The faint traces of the letters suggest the reading dhaṁma-bala.
^[10] As indicated above, there are two Telugu-Kannaḍa letters after this. They have nothing to do with the inscription under study.
^[11] The damaged letters may be siri.