South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

Nîtimârga, is proved by the Śaka dates given in the Biḷiûr, Malligere, and Kûlagere inscriptions. The Biḷiûr inscription^[1] gives us the Satyavâkya─ (proper name not disclosed),─ with a date in the month Phâlguna, Śaka-Saṁvat 809 (expired), falling in A.D. 888, in his eighteenth year. The Malligere inscription^[2] gives us, again, the Satyavâkya ─ (proper name not disclosed),─ with the date of Ś.-S. 828 (expired), = A.D. 906-907, without any details of the month, etc., and without any specification of the regnal year. And the Kûlagere inscription^[3] gives us the Nîtimârga─ (proper name not disclosed),─ with the date of Ś.-S. 831 (expired),= A.D. 909-910, without any details of the month, etc., and without any specification of the regnal year.

We may safely identify the Satyavâkya with the Bûtarasa who is mentioned in the Husukûru inscription, of A.D. 870-71, as then governing the Koṅgaḷnâd and Pûnâḍ provinces as Yuvarâja under Râjamalla. There is every reason to believe that, being the Yuvarâja or chosen successor of Râjamalla, Bûtarasa was also actual successor ; and there is, at any rate, no hint anywhere, as yet, that he died without succeeding. And we shall probably find hereafter that he was the eldest son of Râjamalla. Making this identification,─ then, for the period of Bûtarasa’s own rule, we have, in the first place the Biḷiûr inscription,^[4] which mentions him simply as Satyavâkya, and which gives a Śaka date with details falling in February or March, A.D. 888, in his eighteenth year, and thus fixes the commencement of his rule in A.D. 870 or 871. We may place next the Iggali inscription,^[5] dated, without any details of the month, etc., in his twenty-second year, = A.D. 891-92 : this record mentions a certain Râcheya-Gaṅga, who, it tells us, then died fighting against the Nolamma or Noḷamba ; and it introduces the first certain mention of Ereyappa, whom it describes as convened with Satyavâkya-(Bûtarasa) when the grant registered in it was settled. To somewhere about the same time, because it mentions Ereyappa in exactly the same way, we may refer the Kyâtanahaḷḷi inscription :^[6] this record is not dated in any way ; and it is noteworthy chiefly because it shews that certain epithets applied to Ereyappa in the Bêgûr inscription and supposed^[7] to belong exclusively to him, had been already used by his predecessor : it specifically applies those epithets to the Satyavâkya-Permânaḍi whom it mentions, not as Ereyappa, but along with Ereyappa, from whom it most distinctly separates him. The Râmpura inscription,^[8] dated in the month Mârgaśira of his thirty-fourth year, belongs to A.D. 903 or 904 according to the actual commencement of his rule. And the Malligere inscription,^[9] dated Śaka-Saṁvat 828 (expired), without any details of the regnal year, month, etc., carries him on to A.D. 906-907. There are also two other records of his time, requiring to be noticed here.

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^[1] Ind. Ant. Vol. VI. p. 102, No. 2, with a lithograph (Mr. Kittel’s rendering), and Coorg. Inscrs. p. 5 (Mr. Rice’s rendering).
^[2] Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Kp. 38.
^[3] Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Ml. 30.
^[4] See note 1 above.
^[5] Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Nj. 139.
^[6] Ibid., Sr. 147.─ It seems to be the treatment of this record that led Mr. Rice into wrongly stamping Ereyappa as a Satyavâkya, through the translation of it giving “ Satyavâkya . . . Permanadi, Ereyapparasa.” instead of “ Satyavâkya . . . Permânaḍi and Ereyapparasa.” The translator ignored the copulative endings in Permmânaḍigaḷuṁ Ereyapparasarum=ildu, line 11. The two persons are distinctly separated by those copulative endings.─ The following word, ildu, does not mean “ halting,” as rendered in the translation here, and in the case of Nj. 139 and 192 in the same volume, and of Hg. 103 in Vol. IV. It is equivalent to the more specific oḍan=ildu of Hg. 103, which means “ being together, being in the company of each other, being convened.”─ It may also be noted that Kyâtanahaḷḷi inscription, Sr. 147, has been wrongly interpreted as describing Ereyappa as “ Yuvarâja of the entire Śrîrâjya.” The words occur as part of one of the adjectives qualifying the saints Bhadrabâhu and Chandragupta. And they can only mean something like “ [reverenced] by all Yuvarâjas of the Śrîrâjya.”
^[7] Ep. Carn. Vol. IV. Introd. p. 11.
^[8] Ep. Carn. Vol. III., Sr. 148 ; as regards the date, see page 67 above, note 4.
^[9]Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Kp. 38.