South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

not disclosed in it)─ began in that same year, and, if we were to identify Satyavâkya-Râjamalla, as Mr. Rice has done, with that Satyavâkya, thus making the year A.D. 870-71 his initial date, then we should have to allow a rule of sixty years by his father Raṇavikrama,^[1] which is not admissible after so long a rule as that of Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa immediately before or almost so. And there is also another reason. Mr. Rice has brought to notice^[2] inscriptions at Baragûr and Hêmâvati which mention an intermarriage of the Gaṅgas and the Noḷambas during this period. The Baragûr inscriptions tell us that Satyavâkya-Râjamalla had a son Nîtimârga, whose younger sister Jâyabbe^[3] was married to Noḷambâdhirâja son of Pallavâdhirâja, and that Nolambâdhirâja and Jâyabbe had a son Mahêndrâdhirâja, who was ruling (the Noḷambavâḍi province) at the time when these records were written. One of these Baragûr inscriptions is dated Ś. –S. 800 (expired), = A.D. 878-79. This date is obviously the date of Mahêndrâdhirâja. And it follows that Satyavâkya-Râjamalla must have come very appreciably before A.D. 878-79, for him to have a grandson who was then ruling (the Noḷambavâḍi province), even if he was only an infant ruling it nominally. The date of A.D. 370-71, which is coupled with the name of Satyavâkya-Râjamalla in the Husukûru inscription, can, therefore, be only taken as his final date. And, pending the discovery of dated records which may fix anything more definite, we may divide the preceding interval into the periods of A.D. 810 to 840 for Raṇavikrama and A.D. 840 to 870-71 for Satyavâkya-Râjamalla. I identify Satyavâkya-Râjamalla with the Satyavâkya─ (proper name not disclosed)─ of the Doḍḍahuṇḍi inscription,^[4] and, consequently, his father Raṇavikrama with the Nîtimârga─ (proper name not disclosed)─ who is named in that same record as the father of that Satyavâkya. No chronological question is involved in this ; because that record does not contain any date, Śaka or regnal. But the record can only be placed in the period A.D. 800 (or thereabouts) to 860 ; and it falls quite naturally into its proper place anywhere about A.D. 840. In connection with the records of Satyavâkya-Râjamalla, we need only note further the fact that the Husukûru inscription mentions, as his Yuvarâja or chosen successor, Bûtarasa, who, it tells us, was then governing the Koṅgaḷnâḍ and Pûnâḍ provinces. The Koṅgaḷnâḍ was an eṇchâsira or eight-thousand province,─ see, for instance, an inscription at Kûragallu,^[5] which mentions it as such,─ i.e. a province that included, according to fact or tradition or conventional acceptation, eight thousand cities, towns, and villages.^[6] And the Pûnâḍ or Punnâḍ was an arusâsira or six-thousand province ; see, for instance, an inscription at Dêbûr.^[7] The two provinces were

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^[1] Unless, of course, we place Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa appreciably later than even the period that I have proposed for him. In favour of doing that, it might be urged that there is the Saragûru grant (Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Hg. 4, with a lithograph), purporting to be of his time, the characters of which prove one or other of two things,─ either that the grant is spurious, or that it must be placed much nearer A.D. 870 than 805. But I do not think that Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa can be carried on any later than A.D. 814-15 at the utmost.
^[2] Ep. Carn. Vol. III. Introd. p. 4, and Vol. IV. Introd. p. 11. I am quoting the Baragûr inscriptions from readings for which I am indebted to Mr. Rice.
^[3] Or perhaps Jâlabbe, or something else ; the final reading of the name seems to have not been fixed yet.
^[4] See page 43 above.
^[5] Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Hs. 92.
^[6] On the question of these numerical components of the names of territorial divisions, see Dyn, Kan. Distrs. p. 298, and note 2, and Ind. Ant. Vol. XXIX. p. 277, note 18.
^[7] Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Nj. 26.─ The Pûnâḍ province figures, unfortunately, as a ten-thousand province throughout Mr. Rice’s writing and maps (see, notably, Ep. Carn. Vol. IV. Introd. p. 4, and the maps in Mysore, Vol. I. pp. 300, 314). But it is correctly mentioned as a six-thousand in even line 18 of the spurious Merkâra grant, on which is based the erroneous assertion that it was a ten-thousand. The mistake is traceable back to Dr. Burnell, who wrote when the science of epigraphy was in its infancy, and who arrived at the conclusion that the akshara before the word sahasra, ‘ thousand,’ in the passage in question, is a slight variation of the cave numerical symbol for ‘ ten ’ (South-Ind. Palæo. p. 67). I pointed out, some years ago (Ind. Ant. Vol. XVIII. p. 363), that, according to the lithograph in Ind. Ant. Vol. I. p. 362 (see also Coorg Inscrs. p. 4),─ which undoubtedly represents the original much more correctly than does the representation of the akshara given in Dr. Burnell’s book,─ the akshara is distinctly the syllable chhâ. I did not venture then to decide what it might mean. But, with the Dêbûr inscription as our guide, we know now that it is a Prâkṛit word meaning ‘ six,’ and that the passage speaks of “ the village