Epigraphia Indica Vol 33

SR No.: 032587
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1959
Total Pages: 514
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 29 MB

Page 416

No. 55-INSCRIPTION FROM BANTVALA B. R. GOPAL, OOTACAMUND, AND R. SATHYANARAYANA, MYSORE
(Received on 6.3.1958) The inscription, edited here with the kind permission of the Government Epigraphist for India, is engraved on a stone tablet fixed into a platform in front of the Venkataramanasvāmin temple at Bangvāla in the Mangalore Taluk of the South Kanara District.
The epigraph is engraved in Kannada script excepting the last two lines which are in Nagari characters. Its language, however, is Kannada all through. As regards the palaeography of this late record, it is interesting to note that it uses the sign for indicating the length for è and 0, which is placed to the right side of the letter.
The record registers the death of Svāmi Bhuvanēndra-tirtha Sripada of the Kasi matha and the erection of a lamp-post by Srinivasa Bāliga, the fifth son of Venkatēsa Bāļiga of Bantvāļa, in commemoration of the event. The inscription contains two dates, one relating to the death of the Svāmi and the other to the erection of the lamp-post. The first date is Śaka 1808, Vyaya, Märgasīrsha-bu. 1, Friday, corresponding to the 26th November 1886 A.D. The same date is referred to in the concluding section in Nägari characters (lines 20-21), where reference is made to Friday the twelfth day of the month of Vrischika in the year Vyaya. The details agree with the 26th November 1886 A.D. The date of the erection of the lamp-post is given as Magha fu. 18, Tuesday, regularly corresponding the 8th February 1887 A.D., and this English date also is specified in the record in line 19.
Srinivasa Bāļiga, the donor of the lamp-post, was a Brāhmaṇa of the Gauda-Särasvate community belonging to the Kāsi matha. It is said that the Sārasvatas originally belonged to the Punjab where they dwelt on the banks of the river Sarasvati. Some of them are believed to have migrated to Bihar and settled in Tirhut, whence they moved westwards and settled in Goa in the South Konkan.' About 1554 A.D. when the Portuguese, who were by then masters of Goa, began their religious persecution, the Sārasvatas fled from Goa and settled in the neighbouring Sonda State, the North and South Kanara Districts and the Cochin and Travancore States. In the earliest Kadatas (old account books) and palm-leaf documents available in the South Kanara District, they are known as Konkanastha or, as we find in our inscription, Konkana-dësiya-GaudaSārasvata.
Till the advent of Madhvachārya, the founder of the dualistic philosophy, the Sārasvatas belonged to the Kavale matha (Kaivalyapura or Quela in Goa). But later many of them became followers of Madhvacharya and set up their own spiritual heads. Thus there are two other mathas of the Gauda-Särasvata community besides the Kavale matha, viz., the Kāsi matha and the Gökarna matha, both being Vaishnava institutions of the dualistic school of philosophy. A matha at Bantvāla was established by Svāmi Dēvēndra-tirtha of the Kāki matha about the middle of the 18th century. Svāmi Bhuvanēndra-tīrtha, whose death our record registers, was the disciple of Syami Suyatindra-tirtha and is said to have possessed mantra-sakti as well as vaidya-kakti. He attained samadhi at Basrür in 1886 A.D. on the date given above.
1 A.R.E-p., 1956-57, No.B 223.
According to a noto received by us from the authorities of the Kasi matha, Srinivisa Baliga was the socond son of Venkatesa Baliga. But, according to the genealogical chart received from Shri B. Vaikunta Baliga, the former was the fifth son of the latter and this is supported by the record under study. For further details about the Gauda-Sarasvatas, see Chavan, Vaishnava Dharma of the Gauda-Sarasvatas. :
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