Epigraphia Indica Vol 04

Author(s): E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 15

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. IV.
ornaments the Âtrêya gôtra, a king Bhôjal in exercising imperial sway over the sentiments of poetry (sahitya-rasa), etc.; and is by some of these epithets shown to be Rama II. of the third Vijayanagara dynasty. The statement of our inscription that he was the husband of Sadasivaraya's sister (bhagini), need not, I think, be taken in its literal sense. In an inscription published in the Epigraphia Carnataca, Rama is distinctly called Krishna's (i.e. Krishnaraya's) daughter's husband (jámátá), and the two statements would in my opinion be best reconciled by taking the word bhagini of the present inscription to denote a cousin of Sadasiva's, the daughter of his paternal uncle Krishnaraya.*
From the account of the third Vijayanagara dynasty, given above, Vol. III. p. 238, it will be seen that Ranga I., the father of Râma II. (our Râmaraja), was a son of Rama I. and his wife Laka or Lakks, and grandson of Bukks and his wife Balla or Ballama, and that, in the inscription there treated of, Bukka's father Pinnama II. is styled "the lord of the city of Araviti." Taken together with that account, our inscription in vv. 125-140 clearly shows that the prince (nṛipála) Konḍaraja, at whose solicitation Râmaraja requested Sadasiva to make this grant, was a near relation of Râmaraja's. For Kondaraja is here described as the second of four brothers who also were descended from the king (kshamapa) Bukka of the famous Araviti, thus:
Bukka, md. Ballambika.
Ramaraja, md. Lakkambika
I
Peda-Kopdaraja, md. Kondâmbika.
Konêtiraja, md. Tirumalambika.
L 2. Kopdaraja.
1. Au[bba]laraja.
3. Timmaraja.
4. Bangaraja.
Konḍaraja, therefore, was a grandson of (Peda-Konḍaraja, who was) a brother of (our) Ramaraja's father Ranga I. He apparently is the same person who, in an inscription of the reign of Sadasiva which is dated (one month earlier than the present inscription) at the time of a solar eclipse, on Monday, the new-moon day of Kârttika of Saka-Samvat 1478 (=Monday, the 2nd November, A.D. 1556), is styled "the Mahamandaléévara Komara Konḍarajayyadeva, the great king (maha-arasu)."
Our inscription is dated (in vv. 43-44) in the Saka year counted by the Vasus (8), the horses (7), the oceans (4) and the moon (1), in the year Nala, at the time of an eclipse of the sun on the new-moon tithi of the month Margasirsha, on a Sunday. By the southern luni-solar system the year Nala (Anala) does correspond to Saka-Samvat 1478
1 From this epithet it is clear that Ramaraja was a poet or at least a patron of poets.
See Dr. Hultzsch in Ind. Ant. Vol. XIII. pp. 154-155, and Mr. Krishna Sastri, above, Vol. III. p. 238. Ep. Carn. Part I. p. 216, 1. 1; see also Mr. Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 250.
On the very loose way in which words denoting relationship are used in the Kanarese country, see Dr. Fleet's Kanarese Dynasties, p. 48, note 1. My reason for attaching, in this particular point, rather greater value to the inscription in the Epigraphia Carnataca is, that in the historical account furnished by that inscription the exact relationship between Ramaraja and Krishnaraya is a matter of some importance, and therefore likely to have been described correctly.
This name is written Arietti, Ep. Cars. Part I. p. 19, No. 12, and Aruvifi, ibid. p. 212, No. 181.
The writer, in 1. 244, has omitted the two aksharas Rdma, but there can be no doubt about the intended
rending. 7 ibid. p. 174, No. 108. Kondarija (the mahd-arass) is also mentioned in two short Badami inscriptions of Sadasiva's of the year Sobhakrit (Saka-Samvat 1465); Ind. Ant. Vol. X. p. 64.