South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

evidently contiguous. The Pûnâḍ province has been identified by Mr. Rice with the southern part of the Mysore district, below the Lakshmaṇtîrtha and the Kâvêrî.^[1] The Kûragallu inscription seems to tacitly place in the Koṅgaḷnâḍ province Kûragallu itself, which is in the Huṇsûr tâluka of the Mysore district ; and, if it does so, then that province was immediately on the north-west of Pûnaḍ.

We come now to the period between A.D. 870-71 and 940, which is the leading subject of the present inquiry. We have to deal with a Satyavâkya and a Nîtimârga, whose proper names are, perhaps, not so obviously fixed, as they might have been, by any records as yet brought to notice, and with an Ereyappa, for whom, under that name, the records do not as yet furnish any specific date. And here I have, as a preliminary, to draw attention to two important corrections.

In the first place, for the initial date of Nîtimarga-Ereyappa, I adopted A.D. 893-94, which Mr. Rice deduced,^[2] from the Honnâyakanhaḷḷi inscription, as the initial date of the Nîtimârga of this period. But he has now withdrawn that date. He has told us^[3] that he thought there was a clue in the Honnâyakanhaḷḷi inscription to Śaka-Saṁvat 815 (expired), = A.D. 893-94, but that this does not now seem to be the case. And we are thus free from any necessity of placing the commencement of a rule in A.D. 893-94.

In the second place, the date of an inscription at Râmpura^[4] has been misread. This record is rightly referred by Mr. Rice to the period with which we are dealing. And it really is a record of a Satyavâkya, whose proper name is not disclosed in it. Whereas, however, the published version represents it as dated in his fourth year, I find, from an ink-impression that has reached me, that it is really dated in his thirty-fourth year.^[5] And there is nothing in this to surprise us ; for, not only have we an inscription at Iggali dated in his twenty-second year,^[6] but also Mr. Rice has told us^[7] that there is an inscription at Sâtanûr dated in his twenty-ninth year, and the Malligere inscription, noticed just below, gives a Śaka date for him three years later still.

Next after Satyavâkya-Râjamalla, then, we have to locate a Satyavâkya and a Nîtimârga. And the order in which they came, namely the Satyavâkya first and then the

named Badaṇeguppe in the Eḍenâḍu seventy of the Pûnâḍu chhâsahasra or six-thousand.” The passage is mostly in very bad Sanskṛit ; but it contains also the Prâkṛit form saptari, for saptati, ‘ seventy.’ The chhâ that is used in it for ‘ six,’ figures also in Marâṭhî, in chhattîs, ‘ thirty-six,’ and chhappann, ‘ fifty-six,’ in both of which words the following consonant is doubled, instead of lengthening the a of chha. We have chha for ; ‘ six ’ in Pâli also, with the short a sometimes lengthened in composition, for instance chhâ-rattaṁ, ‘ a period of six nights ’ (see Childers’ Pâli Dictionary). And the spurious Bangalore grant which purports to be dated A.D. 445, gives us the long â even with a doubling of the following consonant, in the word chhânnavati, ‘ ninety-six’ (Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. p. 95, text line 2-3 from the top, and Plate).

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^[1] See the maps in his Mysore, Vol. I. pp. 300, 314, and, more clearly on this point, in his Mysore Inscrs. Introd. p. 84.
^[2] Ep. Carn. Vol. III. Introd. p. 4.
^[3] Ep. Carn. Vol. IV. Introd. p. 11, note 4.
^[4] Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Sr. 148, with a lithograph.─ The published text gives Satyavâkhya-Permmanaḍigaḷ âḷutta nâlkaneya varshada, rendered in the translation by “ the fourth year of the reign of Satyavâkya-Permanaḍi.” And the lithograph shews what is virtually the same thing, namely Satyavâkhya-Permmânaḍigal= âḷutta nâlkaneya varshada. This, however, in the lithograph, is only the result of manipulation, either of an impression or in the course lithography. The ink-impression shews distinctly that the real reading of the original is Satyavâkhya-Permmânaḍigaḷa mû[va]tta-nâlkaneya varshada, “ of the thirty-fourth year of Satyavâkya-Permânaḍi.” The akshara va is damaged and illegible, at the end of line 2. In the preceding akshara, the stroke on the right (proper left) side of the m is also damaged, and perhaps the stroke that makes the difference between a subscript u and û ; or, quite possible, u was written by mistake foe û ; or, even the form muvvatta may have been used, instead of mûvatta, which, however, is not so likely, But it is absolutely certain that this record is dated in the thirty-fourth year of a Satyavâkya.
^[5] See, fully, in the preceding note.
^[6] See page 68 below.
^[7] Ep. Carn. Vol. IV. Introd. p. 11. I assume that this is really a record of a Satyavâkya, as implied.