Indian Antiquary Vol 20

SR No.: 032512
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 486
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

Page 107

MARCH, 1891.)
THE EASTERN CHALUKYA CHRONOLOGY.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EASTERN CHALUKYA KINGS.
BY J. F. FLEET, BO.C.S., M.R.A.S., C.I.E.
(Continued from p. 15.) VARIOUS passages, both in the Eastern Chalukya records and in those of some other
dynasties, shew that, just as, after the period of the Rashtrakūta sovereignty, the later descendants of the Western Branch of the Chalukya family were specially known as "the lords of Kuntala," so the kings of the Eastern Branch were called distinctively “the lords of Vengi," from the territory which for so long a time formed the principal and favourite portion of their dominions. In the Eastern Chalukya records, that territory is called, sometimes, the Vengi or Vengi mandala ;' sometimes, the Vengi dosa ;and sometimes, simply the land of Vengt (Vengi-mahi, and Venge-bhú). One of the records (S.) mentions also a territorial division called the Venginînda vishaya ;this, however, I should think, denotes, not the whole Vengi country, but a subdivision of it, lying round the town from which the kingdom took its name. In a Tamil inscription of the Chola king Ko-Rajaraja-Rajakesarivarman, it is called the Vengai nadu. (Hultzsch's South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. pp. 63, 65). The original boundaries of this tract of country appear to have been, towards the west, the Eastern Ghauts, running from south-west to north-east; on the east, the sea-coast, running parallel to the Ghauts; on the northern frontier, the river Godavari, running from north-west to south-east; and on the southern frontier, the river Kistna or Krishņa, running almost parallel to the Godavari. The area thus enclosed would be roughly about eight thousand miles. And the proper Hindu name of this territory, - but perhaps of a larger area of which it only formed a part, - appears to be the Andhra or Andhra country. There are, however, indications that in subsequent times the Vengi country included a great portion of the territory on the north of the Godavari ; the boundary line in that direction being then taken more in a straight line, almost due east, to the coast, from the place where the Godavari passes through the Ghauts. On the north of Vengi lay the territory of the Gangas of Kalinganagara ; and on the south, that of the Pallavas of Kañcht, the more northern portions of whose dominions appear to have been rather qnickly absorbed into the Eastern Chalukya country. On the west, the Eastern Chalukya dominions must have been coterminous with the territories that were held, first by their relations of the Western Branch, whose capital was Bådâmi; then by the Rashtraktas of MAlkbed; and then by the Western Chalukyas of Kalyan. As has been pointed out by previous writers, the name of Vengi, and probably an indication of the position of the original capital, is preserved in vogi or Pedda-Vêgi, which is a village about seven miles north of Ellore (Elûru), the chief town of the Ellore Talaka or Sub-Division of the Godavari District in the Madras Presidency, and about ten miles, to the north-west, from the Kolár or Kolleru lake, which would probably furnish, quite as well as any river, an ample water-supply for a city of size; it is shewn in the map, Indian Atlus, Sheet No. 94, as Pedavaigie,' in Lat. 16° 49', Long. 81° 10'. There is, however, another village close by, Chinna-Vêgi, - not entered in the map, - which, it seems, is just as likely to represent the ancient capital. Also, there are said to be extensive ruins and mounds, reaching from Pedda-Vêgi to Deņdalúru, five miles to the south-east; and there is a tradition that Dendalûru once formed a part of the ancient city. Subsequently, the
1 The name occurs in both ways) with the long vowelf, and also with the short voweli, in the second syllable; but it is most usually written with the long vowel. Dr. Burnell considered that the Tamil form, Vengai, indicates that properly the vowel is short; and that Vengt, like KAficht, is a Sanskritised form.
1 mandala and dfsa are technical territorial terms, evidently applied to rather extensivo areas, and more or less synonymous; see Gupta Inscriptions, p. 32, note 7.
· vishwya is another technical torm; and seems to denote properly a sub-division of a mandah or ddia (loc. cit.)
• nadu is the Dravidian equivalent of the Sanskrit d&ta. In composition, it occurs in the nasalised form of nindu: e. g. Vengin Andu, and VelanAnda. - Nanti, e. g. in Bengurankņti, seems to be another form of it.
See Dr. Burnell's South Indian Palæography, second edition, p. 16, noto, and Mr. Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, Madras, Vol. I. pp. 34, 36; also, for a small map of the Andbra country, Sir A. Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, p. 587. The identification of Vengt with Pedda-Végi appears to be due to Sir Walter Elliot; but I am not able to refer to his paper on the subject.