South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

finding Vennaya to be a dānapātra (i.e., a person worthy of a gift), implored him to receive the gift of a village, he accepted it out of consideration for him, in spite of his aversion to do so. After having received Vilasa as an agrahāra, he, along with his brother, re-granted it to a number of Brāhmaṇas, having divided it into one hundred and eight shares. There were eighty donees in all including the two deties, Gautamēśvara and Kēśava of the village. The list of donees with their names of gōtras, śākhās and the number of shares given to each is appended hereto.

This agrahāra was pre-eminently granted to the Bhāradvāja-gōtrins, who received more than fifty four shares in the village. With the exception of a few, most of the donees were Yajur-vēdins who were proficient in the sacrificial lore, besides being poets, commentators, Vēd-ādhyāpakas and adhyētṛis and experts in śāstras and darśanas. The titles given to many of the recipients indicate the high level of their scholarship and skill in the various sciences and arts. It is unusual to find so many scholars of repute among the donees mentioned in the grants of the late medieval period. It is yet strange and unfortunate that not even one of the works of these reputed scholars, who were not only proficient in gaṇita, jyōtisha, grammar, logic, āgames, darśanas and vēdānta but were also scholarists and poets, his come to light. It is for future research to unearth their works. It is interesting to find two donees of the Parāśara gōtra and Yajuś śākhā who were experts in the guru-tantra. The mention of the guru-tantra in the grant under review shows that even pūrva-mīmāṁsā was studied in the coastal Āndhra country as late as the fourteenth century.

It is also worth noting that the donees, with the exception of a few, were experts in the ritual of sacrifices. This is significant as indicating the revival of Vēdism and Vēdic sacrifices in the early post-Kākatīya period in the coastal region, subsequently to the attainment of independence and the re-establishment of Hindu monarchy. The establishers of independence voluntarily undertook the task of purifying the places in Āndhra (Āndhrān=pradēśān) defiled by the sinful feet of the Muhammadans, by the continuous performance of Vedic sacrifices by Brāhmaṇas, which were stopped during the Musslman rule (kṛitvā pravṛittān virata-prasaṁgān yajñān havir-dhūma-paraṁ-parābhiḥ). This revival of sacrifices and Vēdism gave a re-orientation to the then existing religion of the country by giving it a strong Vēdic tinge, and had a profound influence on the Vaishṇava cult of the South.

Of the places mentioned in the grant, viz., Tiliṅga-dēśa, Kōna-maṇḍala, Ḍhilli, Ēkaśilānagara, Rēkapalli and the gift village Vilasa and its boundaries, Tilinga-dēśa is the Telugu country. Its extent conformed more or less to the present Āndhra State. The terms Telugu and Āndhra became synonymous even by the middle of the thirteenth century and both terms were applied indiscriminately to denote the whole country dominated by the Telugu speaking people. Kōna-maṇḍala, same as Kōna-dēśa, Kōna-rāshṭra of Kōna-sthala, is the country ruled by the feudal chiefs of the Haihaya dynasty in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Christian era. It is no doubt the Reṇḍērula-naḍimi-vishaya of the Naṁḍaṁpūṁdi grant^[1] and probably the Sindhu-yugm-āṁtara-dēśa of the Piṭhāpuram pillar inscription of the Velanāṭi king, Pṛithivīśvara.^[2] The identification of the Sindhu-yugam-āṁtara-dēśa with the territory between the rivers Gōdāvarī and the Krishṇā^[3] by Hultzsch, the editor of the inscription, is of course, erroneous. Acording to the late Mr. J. Ramayya Pantulu who re-edited the Naṁdaṁpūṁḍi grant in the journal of the Telugu Academy,^[4] the terms sindhu-yugm-āṁtara is nothing but a Sanskritisation of reṇḍ-ērula-naḍimi-vishaya of the Naṁdaṁpūṁḍi grant, and the rivers that enclose this territory, are the Gautamī, the main one of the seven-branches of the Gōdāvārī, and the Vainatēyaṁ, another if its branches. So this reṇḍ-ērula-naḍimi-vishaya in his opinion, corresponds to the present Amalapur Taluk. This Kōna-sthala or Kōna-dēśa

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^[1] Above, Vol. IV., pp. 300, ff.
^[2]Ibid., Vol. IV, pp. 36 and 42.
^[3] Ibid., p. 36.
^[4] Vol. I, pp. 45 ff.