Indian Antiquary Vol 03

SR No.: 032495
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 420
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
and Nagamangala plates it occurs in a combination, thus, Srimaddharivarmma, which would properly give Hari Varm ma, and this is the form of the name in the Kongudeśa Rájákal also.
To the information obtained regarding the Pallavas I regret that I cannot as yet add anything. But another line of rulers has come to light in connection with these two inscriptions, which is not without interest. In a late tour I accidentally came upon a village named Nir gunda, which at once recalled the name of the kingdom mentioned in both. On further inquiry I found the place had a history of great antiquity, and have no doubt that it is the very one in which the transactions recorded in the Nâgaman gala plates occurred.
The legend of the place is as follows:-In ancient times, when the site of the village was covered with thick forests, a king named Nila Sekhara, the son of Raja Paramesvara R & y a, came here from a northern country, and liking the spot began to erect a fort in the year 2941 of the Kali yuga (B. c. 160), the year Pramâdi, the month Śravana, the 5th day of the moon's increase, the nakshatra being Hasta. While the work was proceeding, he came upon hidden treasure, and with it completed the fortifications, with seven walls, in five years. He also built temples therein, and named the town Nilavatipatna. Then raising a large army he conquered various countries, from the kings of which he levied tribute and contributions. He died after a reign (? at the age) of 80 years, and was succeeded by his son Vira Sekhara, who ruled in the same manner as his father, and the descendants of this line continued to be independent sovereigns of their country.
After many days, in the powerful reign of Vikrama Raya of this house, a lion (simha) took shelter in a pleasure-garden to the east of the town and was a terror to the people. At that time two brothers, Soma Sekhara and Chitra Sekhara, sons of Vajra Makuta Raya, coming to Nila vati at night, bored a way through the outer wall. Stupefying the guards with manku búdi (a kind of ashes which thrown upon any one renders him insensible) and maiming them, they penetrated in like manner through the seven walls. They next made a hole in the wall of Vikrama Râya's palace, and, seeing him asleep in bed, wrote, "If you do not give your daughter Ratnavati to Chitra Sekhara we will break your head," and going to the house of the king's minister tied the writing to his hand. Having done which, they concealed themselves in the house of a dancing-girl named Padmavati.
[SEPTEMBER, 1874.
Next morning the king, hearing the news from the minister and others, caused it to be proclaimed through the streets that the princess would be given in marriage to whomever should destroy the lion which had taken refuge on the east of the town. The brothers, hearing this, next night killed the beast, and cutting off its tail returned to their lodging. In the morning Mâra, a washerman of the town, finding the lion dead, cut out its tongue and took it to the king as a sign that he had killed the animal. The noise of the consequent preparations for the marriage of the princess to the washerman reaching the ears of the brothers, they went in disguise to the king with the tail of the lion tied to a lute, and represented how the younger was the real champion. Thereupon the king gave his daughter Ratnâvati in marriage to Chitra Sekhara. And after a short time Vikrama R&y a died, and, having no male issue, left the kingdom to his son-in-law. And in the reign of Bala Vira and Narasimha Bhupala, his successors, Ball&la Raya, the Jain ruler of Dorasamudra, conquered the country, in the year 722 of the Salivahana era, the year Prabhava (perhaps a mistake for S.Ś. 927, the year Parabhava). Vishnu Varddhana, of that line, afterwards demolished the whole of the fort, and built a large tank in the east (now called Ballala Samudra), together with several temples. But in the year Vikâri of his reign a disease called haravu broke out in the town, from which the people died just as they were, those who were sitting sitting, and those who were standing standing. A great panic arose, and such as escaped the disease fled in all directions. The town being thus deserted went to ruin, and the king removed to Dorasamudra.
A long time after, Mangaiya and Honnaiya, of the Nonaba Vakkaliga caste, enclosed some ground near the temple of Siddheśvara, to the east of the ruins, and building a hundred houses established rayats in them. They called the village Nirgunda and assumed the office of Gauda. When their descendants had been in possession for two hundred years, the crops failed for four and eight years. The place was thereupon again deserted, and the Gauda's family built another village, named Saragondanahalli, near Huliyår, and settled there for fifty or sixty years.
About twenty or thirty years after Nirgunda was abandoned, Hanuma the Talvår, and Chikka Malige the Begâri of the village collected twenty families of rayats and discharged the duties of Gauda for thirty or forty years. Descendants of the former Gaudas then returned from Suragondanhalli at the instance of Anantaiya the Shanbhog, and collecting eighty families of rayats