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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. III.
The inscription professes to be one of the devout worshipper of Bhagavat (Vishnu), the law-abiding Maharaja of the Pallaves, the illustrious Nandivorman (1. 10), a member of the Bhåradvaja gôtra, who is described as the son of the Maharaja Skandavarman (1. 6), the son's son of the Maharaja Simhavarman (1.4), and the great-grandson of the Raja Skandavarman (1.2). It informs us in II. 11-14) that, from the victorious Kanchipura (L. 1.), Nandivarman gave the village of Kåñchivậyil and four pieces of forest-land, situated in the district (rashtra) of Adhyâra, to & Brahmaņa inhabitant of Kâñchivậyil, named Kuļašarman, who belonged to the Kausika gótra and to the Vedic school of the Taittiriyas, and whose sútra was the Pravachana. The inscription further (in 11. 15-18) contains an admonition not to levy taxes on the land so granted, threatens with corporal punishment those who should transgress the king's commands, and cites two of the ordinary imprecatory verses ; and it cloges (in l. 19) with the statement that this document (paffikd) was issued on the arth (lunar day) of the bright half of Vaisakha, in the first year of the victorious reign (apparently of Nandivarman).
The Tamil endorsement on plate i.a runs thus:-"In the twenty-sixth year of the reign) of Madirai-konda Ko-Parakesarivarman, we, (the members of the assembly of Kanchivåyil, alias Iganmaraimangalam, and we, the members of the assembly of Udayachandramangalam, (have agreed as follows) - We, (the inhabitants of these two villages, having joined (and) having become one, shall prosper as one village from this (date)."
Without the endorsement, this inscription is very similar to the Uruyupalli grant of the Pallava Yuvamaharaja Vishnugopavarman, published by Dr. Fleet in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. V. pp. 50 ff. Indeed, but for the circumstance that our grant was issued (not from Palakkada, but) from Kanchipnre, and that the rulers mentioned in it are Skandavarman, Simhavarman, Skandavarman, and Nandivarman (instead of Skandavarman, Viravarman, Skandavarman, and Vishnugopavarman), lines 1-10 of it read much like a mutilated copy of lines 1-16 of the Uruvapalli grant; and in a similar, though perhaps less striking manner, lines 15-18 of Nandivarman's grant may be said to resemble lines 28-32 of the grant of Vishņugôpavarman. This fact has not escaped the Rev. T. Foulkes, and the conclusion which he has felt inclined to draw from it, apparently is, that both grants were issued by the same prince, and that, accordingly, the Viravarman and Vishnugopavarman of the one grant are identical with the Simhavarman and Nandivarman of the other. I myself am of opinion that the present inscription must, on palæographical grounds, be assigned to a later period than the Uruvapalli grant; and, considering it suspicious that, at different periods, there should have been two Pallava princes whose fathers and great-grandfathers were called Skandavarman, and that, moreover, two sets of four consecutive princes should have been described in almost identical terms, and taking also into account the extreme slovenliness of the wording of Nandivarman's grant, I cannot suppress the belief that this grant may be a spurious document, the writer of which took for his model either the Uruvapalli grant of Vishnugôpavarman itself or some other inscription of the same prince.
The Tamil endorsement of this inscription is practically identical with the endorsement at the end of the grant of Nandivarman Pallavamalla, published by the Rev. T. Foulkes in the Indian
1 For translation of the various epithets applied to these kinge, which for the historian are quite worthless, Bee Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 52.
9 The expression Prava chana-sútra ocorre seven times in the description of the doneos in the grant of Nandivarman Pallavamalls (Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. Pp. 276 and 277). I do not know what particular sutra is referred to by it.
See South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 112. Compare also lines 29-35 of the grant of Simbavarman in Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 156.
Or the Simhavarman, during whose reign the grant of VisbộugOpavarman was issued. * Compare also Dr. Fleet's remarks in Ind. Ant. Vol. IX. p. 101, and Vol. XV. p. 274.
