South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

Pemmânaḍi, the eldest son of (Nîtimârga)-Permanaḍi, gave (to Agarayya) Guldapâḍi,^[1] (as an allotment of) uncultivated waste land,─ having laved (his sword) (?)^[2] (with) relinquishment (of all taxes). He who destroys this, is (like) one who destroys Vâraṇâsi ! Ôm !

[(L.16 ff.)─ This part of the record evidently gives the names of the villages which made up the allotment. But the reading is very uncertain in some places. And no names can be found in the maps, helping to elucidate the reading and to divide the words. The record ends] :─ He who destroys this, shall incur the guilt of the great sins !^[3]

B.- Bêgûr Inscription of Ereyappa.

This inscription was originally brought to notice by Colonel Henry Dixon, H. M.’s 22nd Regiment, Madras Infantry, in his photographic collection, published in 1865, of inscriptions on stone and copper from various places in the Mysore territory ; and a print from his negative has been given in my Pâli, Sanskṛit, and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. 247,^[4] issued in 1878. In 1879, Mr. Rice gave a reading of the text, and a translation, in his Mysore Inscriptions, p. 209, with a lithograph of the entire stone (id. Frontispiece). And a rendering of the record by myself, partly from Col. Dixon’s photograph and partly from an inked estampage sent to me by Dr. Hultzsch, was published in 1892, in Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 346. I give now a more final rendering of it from a better ink-impression, for which I am again indebted to Dr. Hultzsch. The collotype is from the ink-impression. The photo-etching is from a photograph of the stone itself.

Bêgûr is a village in the Bangalore tâluka of the Bangalore district, Mysore. It is shewn in the Indian Atlas, sheet No. 60, S.E. (1894), in lat. 12º 52ʹ, long. 77º 41ʹ, about seven miles S.S.E. from Bangalore. It is evidently the ancient Beṁpûr (Bempûr) or Beṁpûru of the record ; though, why the ṁp or mp should have changed into g, is not apparent.^[5] And the record shews that it was the chief village of a circle known as the Bempûr twelve. The inscription is on a stone-tablet, measuring about 6ʹ 6ʺ broad by 6ʹ 8ʺ high, which was found at this village, and is now in the Mysore Government Museum at Bangalore.

compound, we have the word kil, kîl, kîlu, ‘ the state of being low, below, beneath, under, down, base, degraded or mean,’ which occurs in such expressions as kil-kabbiga, ‘ an inferior, base poet,’ kîl-âl, ‘ a low man,’ and kîlu-manneya, ‘ a petty chieftain ;’and in epigraphic records we meet with kil-kere or kîl-kere, evidently meaning ‘ a lower tank ’ (Inscrs. at Śrav.-Beḷ. No. 24), and kil-kalnâḍu, meaning apparently ‘ a lower or smaller portion of uncultivated waste ’ (an inscription at Hirî-Bidanûr, for the text of which I am indebted to Mr. Rice). And Mr. Kittel, taking the whole word in connection with his proposal of mane-maggattina, would interpret the text as meaning that “ Agarayya, who held a (mere) servile position in the house of Pemmânaḍi, became a (real, though) subordinate servant, or armed attendant, to Nîtimâr ga-Pormanaḍi.” But we have also the verb kil, kîl, kîlu, ‘ to draw or pull out, etc.’ And I think that the indication afforded by the sculptures on the stone, suggests for kil-guṇṭhe the meaning that I propose in my translation.

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^[1] Mr. Rice’s translation gives “ Permmanaḍi’s good son Satya-vâkya survived to Permmanaḍi.” This requires us to analyse, at the end of line 6, Pemmânaḍigaḷge uldaṁ. And I adopted that analysis, in taking the record to mean that “ Agarayya survived to (render service to) Satyavâkya ” (above, Vol. V. p. 163). But I consider now that such an analysis is wrong. The past tense of uli, ‘ to remain alive, to remain behind,’ would be ulidaṁ, not uldaṁ ; the line across the stone between lines 15 and 16 of the text, marks that place as the first division in the text ; and the Satyavakhya-Pemmânaḍigaḷ in line 6 must be taken as the agent of the verbal form koṭṭadu (for koṭṭudu) in line 9.

^[2] In line 9-10, where Mr. Rice’s text gives Kappahaḷḷi, we have in all probability gachchaṁ mâḍi. And gachchaṁ must stand for kachchaṁ, the accusative of kachchu, ‘ washing.’ The expression kâlaṁ kachchu, karchu, kalchu, ‘ to wash, or lave the feet,’ is a very well known one, in the case of grants given or entrusted to priests. And we have also the nouns kâl-gachchu, ‘ feet-washing,’ and bâḷ-gachchu, ‘ sword-washing ’ (see page 52 below, note 4). A prince would have an attendant’s sword,─ not his feet.
^[3] The pañchamahâpâtaka or five grant sins are, killing a Brâhmaṇ, drinking intoxicating liquors, theft, committing adultery with the wife of a spiritual teacher, and associating with any one guilty of those offences.
^[4] The correct name of the village was not then known, and is there given as ‘ Reygoor,’ mistakenly. ^[5] The first component of the name, however, may possibly be another variant of bêhu, bêgu, ‘ spying ;’ in which case, the name would mean “ spying-town ” or “ watch-town.”