South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

probably corresponds to the 22nd May A.D. 1084. At the end of the inscription (l. 108) another date is given, viz. the seventeenth year of the reign.

The above statements involve a few important changes in the pedigree and the chronology of the Eastern Châlukyas. As regards the former, the order of the sons of Kulôttuṅga I. in my Table of this dynasty^[1] has to be altered ; for the Ṭêki plates inform us that the eldest son was not, as I thought, Vikrama-Chôḍa, Kulôttuṅga’s successor on the Chôḷa throne, but Chôḍagaṅga. As the Chellûr and Piṭhâpuram plates (v. 19) state that Vîra-Chôḍa had only two elder brothers it is now clear that these were Chôḍagaṅga and Mummaḍi-Chôḍa, and that Vikrama-Chôḍa was a younger brother of Vîra-Chôḍa. Secondly, the dates at the end of the Chellûr and Piṭhâpuram plates, viz. the twenty-first and twenty-third years of the reign, respectively, cannot be referred, as was done hitherto, to the reign of Vîra-Chôḍa. For, taking the date at the end of the Ṭêki plates in the same manner as the seventeenth year of Chôḍagaṅga, it would correspond to A.D. 1084 + 16-17 = 1100-01, while the Chellûr plates would fall in A.D. 1078 + 20-21 = 1098-99, and Vîra-Chôḍa would thus have issued an edict during the governorship of his brother Chôḍagaṅga. They only way in which the dates of the three inscriptions can be reconciled is to refer them to the accession of Kulôttuṅga I. in A.D. 1070. They would then fall in A.D. 1086-87, 1090-91 and 1092-93. The two last dates would imply that Vîra-Chôḍa administrated the

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Vêṅgi province a second time in succession of Chôḍagaṅga. That this was actually the case is explicitly stated in his Piṭhâpuram plates. We are there told that Vîra-Chôḍa was recalled by Kulôttuṅga I. (v. 25), but sent to Vêṅgi again in the fifth year (v. 26). The occasion when he was recalled was evidently the appointment of Chôḍagaṅga in A.D. 1084, and “ the fifth year ” must mean the fifth year after Vîra-Chôḍa’s recall, i.e. A.D. 1088-89. This explanation is in perfect accordance with the fact that the Ṭêki plates are dated two years earlier, viz. in the seventeenth year of Kulôttuṅga I. = A.D. 1086-87. The fact that the Chellûr plates are silent regarding the intervening governorship of Chôḍagaṅga, and that the Piṭhâpuram plates allude to it without mentioning his name, suggests that he had discredited himself with his father and had been on bad terms with his brother Vîra-Chôḍa. The subjoined Table shows the relationship and the dates of the three successive governors of Vêṅgi.

Kulôttuṅga-Chôḍa I. ;
married Madhurântakî.

Chôḍagaṅgadêva (l. 80), surnamed Râjarâja (l. 78), bore the traditional titles Sarvalôkâśraya, Vishṇuvardhana, etc., (ll. 76-78), and (like his younger brother Vîra-Chôḍa) resided at Jananâthanagari (l. 81), which Mr. Krishna Sastri proposes to identify with the modern Râjamahêndri.^[2] He addresses the edict contained in this inscription to the inhabitants of the country between the Mannêru (river) and the Mahêndra (mountain) (l. 83). These must have been the northern and southern boundaries of the Vêṅgî province. The Mahêndra mountain is in the Gañjâm district near the Mandasa Railway Station, and the Mannêru river passes Siṅgarâyakoṇḍa, now a Railway Station in the Kandukûr tâluka of the Nellore district. The king’s edict does not, as usual, refer to a grant of land ; it confers certain honorary privileges on the

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South-Ind. Inscr. Vol. I. p. 32.
^[2] Above, Vol. V. p. 71.