Epigraphia Indica Vol 13

SR No.: 032567
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sten Konow, F W Thomas
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1915
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 38

No. 3.)
INSCRIPTIONS FROM BELGAUM: A, OF A.D. 1204.
17
and B, verse 20 and line 33. After that, verbes 15 to 29 (11. 19-37) descant on the merits of the family of Biohana or Bichirăja, a Chief Scribe and Minister of Kärtavirya. whose pedigree is as follows:
Udaya
Bichana (Bicha) I
Permana
Appaņa (Appa),
m. Vägdēvi
Bichana (Bicha) II, Vaijana (Vaija)
Baladeva a ministar of Kārtavirya IV.
Appana is described as frikarana, "& Scribe" (B, verses 18, 20), and as frikaran-âgraganya, "worthy to be counted foremost among Scribes" (A, verse 21), and as frikaran-āgrani, "a leader of Scribes" (B, verse 17). The epithet frikiran-igra-ganya is also applied to his eldest son, the second Bichana (B, l. 33), who is further mentioned as srikaran-adhipa,
chief of the Scribes," of Kärtavirga IV (B, verse 23), and as a sachiva or “minister of the same prince (A, verses 25, 26; B, verse 19). And we learn from A, line 39, and B, 1. 33, that it was this Bichana who founded the Ratta-Jinālaya temple at Belgaum.
The object of the record (1. 37 ff.) was to register donations which were made on a specified date in the time of Kärtavirya IV, falling in December, A.D. 1204, for the upkeep of the Jain tomple named Ratta-Jinälaya at Belgaum, which had been founded by the aforesaid Bichana or Bichirāja II. The grants were given to a trustee, Subhachandra-bhattarakadeva, the Acharya of the said temple, who, as we shall see from the inscription B, was attached to Hanasoge, a town in the Yedatore taluka of the Mysore District, which once had & Jaia establishment of some importance?: he was a disciple of Nēmichandra, disciple of Maladhāri. dēva, and belonged to the Pustaka Gachchha, the Désiya Gana, and the Kondakunda Anvaya, of the Mula Samgha (B, verses 23-5, and II. 34-5). The first of the grants, given by Kārtavirya IV himself (11. 37-45), included an assignment of land at Vēņugrāme, 1.o. Belgaum, on the sthala-vritti tenure (1. 41), a form of holding for which payment was made in kind from the produce. The other grants consisted of imposts both in kind and in coin on various commodities of trade (11. 45-59), and certain shops (1. 59). This part of the record is of much importance, as it throws considerable light on the economic organization of a great town of the period; and it is specially interesting to learn from lines 50, 51, that the mercantile community of Belgaum already included foreign settlers from Lala, i.e. Läţa, Gujarat, and the Maleyalam country. Then come two minatɔry Sanskrit verse: (11. 60, 61), and two Kanareso verses and a prose Kanarese colophon naming the composer of the record (11. 61-3): he is Balachandra-dēva, styled Kavi-Kandarpa, a disciple of Madhavachandra.
1 This temple, though bearing this special name, was not the royal temple of the Rattas. That one, mentioned Rattara parta Jinalaya in line 2 of record of A.D. 980, was at Saundatti; see Journ. Bombay Branch R.As. Soc., vol. 10, pp. 204, 208.
See, e.g., Epi. Cars., vol. 4, Mysore, intro..., p. 16 ff.; and vol. 7 above, p. 110. * Cl. tafa-esitti, vol. 22 above, p. 273.