South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

No. 21.- TWO FURTHER INSCRIPTIONS OF TAMMUSIDDHI.
BY H. LÜDERS, PH.D. ; GÖTTINGEN.
A.- TIRUVORRIYUR INSCRIPTION OF SAKA-SAMVAT 1129.

The subjoined inscription is engraved on the east wall of the second prâkâra of the Âdhipurîśvara temple at Tiruvorriyûr in the Saidâpêṭ tâluka of the Chingleput district.^[1] The excellent inked estampages from which it is edited here were supplied to me by Dr. Hultzsch.

The inscription consists of 26 lines in Grantha characters which vary in size from ⅔” to 1½”.The language is Sanskṛit, and the whole text is in verse. With regard to orthography it may be noted that the engraver has followed the common practice of the time in this part of the country, in writing a surd consonant instead of a sonant before a sonant, in patma (ll. 1, 2, 3), dṛikbhyâm (l. 3), utbhavati (l. 8), ushatbudha (l. 13), and bhavatbhir (l. 25). Instead of ushadbudha lexicographers teach usharbudha, and this form is actually found in the Uttararâmacharita (6, 4º). Nevertheless I do not venture to alter ushatbudha into usharbudha, as the word occurs again in exactly the same shape in line 15 of the Aruḷâḷa-Perumâḷ inscription of Tammusiddhi (B. below), and under these circumstances a mere clerical error seems to be out of the question.^[2]

The inscription is one of king Tammusiddhi or Tammusiddha, and in every respect closely resembles the two inscriptions of that chief which I have edited above, p. 119 ff. I have pointed out already on that occasion that the present inscription is of some importance as settling the question of the relationship of Dâyabhîma and Nallasiddhi, which was left undetermined by the other two records.^[3] Besides, the genealogical portion of the inscription contains seven new verses, three of which, however, are of no interest for the historian as they are merely in praise of some well-known heroes of the solar line from which Tammusiddhi claimed descent, viz. Raghu (v. 8), Daśaratha (v. 9), and Râma (v. 10). Verse 12 also, which alludes to the feats of the ancient Chôḷa king Kalikâla, adds nothing to our knowledge as it is an almost literal equivalent of the corresponding verse in the other two inscriptions. The verses 26 and 27 are eulogies of Tammusiddhi after the usual fashion.

The only new verse of historical value is verse 15, which introduces a king Betta as a descendant of Madhurântaka Pottappi-Chôḷa and an ancestor of Tiluṅgavidya or, as he is called here (v. 16), Tiluṅgabijja. Literally translated, the verse runs thus : “In this family was born (a king) called Betta, who was the crusher of the thunderbolt whose flight was impelled by Śakra ; if he with his fiery splendour had risen before, the cutting of the wings of the mountains also would have taken place.” Betta is here compared to Agni, the fire or the fire-god, who has the reputation of being able to split diamonds and thunderbolts.^[4] As Betta,

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^[1] No. 104 of the Government Epigraphist’s collection for the year 1892.
^[2] The writing ushadbudha is perhaps due to the influence of Tamil phonology. As in Tamil a Sanskṛit dental generally assumes th sound of r before a labial (compare e.g. Tamil urpatti = Sanskṛit utpatti and Tamil arpudam = Sanskṛit adbhutam), I think it not unlikely that the r of usharbudha also was looked at as a secondary sound and
therefore erroneously converted into d or t.
^[3] It will be noticed that the term tad-vaṁśajaḥ in verse 11 of the Tiruppâśûr inscription is replaced here (v. 20) by the words asy=ânujaḥ.
^[4] See especially a passage in the Uttararâmacharita (6, 4º), pointed out to me by Prof. Kielhorn : uchchaṇḍa-vajra-khaṇḍ-âvasphôṭa-paṭuḥ . . . usharbudhaḥ, ‘the fire . . . which is able to split into pieces the exceedingly hard vajras.’ In this case, it is true, vajra would naturally suggest the meaning of diamond ; but as vajra has also the meaning of thunderbolt, and as the thunderbolt is thought to be of the same substance with the diamond, it is easy to understand how later writers came to credit the fire also with the faculty of destroying thunderbolts.