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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA however, is not a legendary person to whom purely fictitious exploits such as a fight with Indra might be ascribed, it is evident that the words Śakra-chôdita-gatêr aśanêḥ prahartâ must be understood in a double sense and as referring to some historical event. We are thus led to take Aśani as a proper name and to translate ‘who defeated Aśani whose march had been ordered by Śakra.’ In this care Aśani would seem to have been the general of a king called Śakra or Indra ; but it is perhaps even more probable, as suggested to me by Prof. Kielhorn, that Śakra-chôdita-gati is the Sanskṛit rendering of some Tamil or Telugu biruda of Aśani, just as Aśani itself may be the Sanskṛit equivalent of some Draviḍian name. Who this Aśani was, I am unable to tell ; but it can be shown, at any rate, that proper names or birudas with the meaning of ‘ thunderbolt ’ are by no means uncommon in Southern India. Pagâppiḍugu, ‘ the thunderbolt which cannot be split,’ was the surname of the Pallava Mahêndravarman I.[1] Among the ancestors of the Chôḷa chief Śrîkaṇṭha appears an Agraṇipiḍugu, ‘ the thunderbolt to the foremost (of his enemies),’[2] and in the inscriptions of the Perumâḷ temple at Poygai we find four times a certain Śambuvarâyan who bore the biruda Vîrâśani, ‘the thunderbolt to heroes.’[3]To these may be added Piḍuvarâditya, the biruda of Malla II., one of the chiefs of Velanâṇḍu, as the first member of the compound seems to be connected with piḍugu.[4] The object of the grant is to record that in the Śaka year denoted by the chronogram Dhîrayâyin, i.e. 1129 (=A.D. 1207-8), Tammusiddhi allotted to the god, the lord of Âdhipurî, all the revenue due to the king in the villages belonging to the temple. Âdhipurî is an attempt of Sanskṛitizing Tiruvorriyûr, the name of the village where the temple is situated.[5]
TEXT.[6]
1 Svasti śrî-Tammusiddhâya tasmai yat-sainya-rêṇavaḥ [|*] Brahma-patma(dma)-
spṛiśaś=śaṁkê bhâvi-bhû-sṛishṭi-hêtavaḥ || [1*] Jayati vijayi-châpaḥ kshâlit-
aśêsha-pâpas=satata-madhura-lâpaḥ prâ-
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