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No. 25.]
CHIKKULLA PLATES OF VIKRAMENDRAVARMAN II.
195
writer's vernacular was Telugu and that the donor worshipped the lord of Sriparvata, which I take to be the sacred Srisaila in the Karşal district, I believe that the word survives in Vinukonda, the name of a hill-fort and town in the Kistna district, about 60 miles east of Srigaila and 50 miles south of the river Krishna, and that this Vinukonda, which is reported to be a place of great antiquity, was really the capital of the Vishnukaņding. I also would identify the donor's father, Indrabhattarakavarman, with the Indrabhattaraka, to uproot whom, as we learn from lines 17-20 of the Gôdkvart plates of the Raja Prithivimala, an alliance was formed by several chiefs, and whose elephant Kamuda was struck down by a certain Indrådhiraja, mounted on his own elephant Supratika.'
The place tondufùra from which the donor's order was issued, is identified by Mr. Ramayya with the modern Dendalûra, the Dendaloor of the map, & village on the raing of the city of Vengt, about 5 miles north-east of Elûru (Ellore) in the Ellore taluks of the Godavari district. The two villages mentioned in line 20 I am unable to identify. As regards the time of the inscription, both the circumstance that the date is referred to a fortnight of the summer season, and the employment of numerical symbols in line 26, tend to show that this record is not later than about the end of the 8th century A.D., while the whole style of the inscription appears to indicate that it cannot well be assigned to a much earlier period. This conclusion would well accord with the mention, in connection with the donor's grandfather, of the V&kåta (or Vakațaka) family, which in all probability flourished towards the end of the 7th and in the 8th century A.D.; and there is nothing in the palæography of the inscription that would militate against it.
TEXT.
1 Omn gvasti 2 sâmi-pâdânuddhyato
First Plate. Vijaya-Lenduļûrs-vasak&d=bhagavatah Sriparvvata
7 Vishnukundingmm-ekâdag-Asvamédh-Avabhrit-4-8
Compare Mr. Sewell's List of Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 67. I believe that either Vinukonda,' the sky hill,' is & corruption of Vishnukunda or the latter & Sanskritized form of the former. Mr. Sewell informe me that the Telugus explain the word Vinukonda as the hill of bearing,' because Rama is believed to have beard there the news of Sita's abduction.
Jour. Bo. As. Soc. Vol. XVI. p. 117. Dr. Fleet, who thought of identifying the Indrabhattåraka of Prithivimala's inscription with the Eastern Chalukya of that name, the younger brother of Jayasimba I., bas already stated that Kumuda is properly the elephant of the south-west or south, and Supratlka the elephant of the north-east. With reference to that remark it may be noted that our inscription particularly eulogizes Indrabhattarakavarman for the victories which he gained by means of his elepants over otber chaturdanta elephants, and that chaturdanta is properly an epithet of Indra's elephant Airavata, the elephant of the east.
* See Mr. Sewell's Lists of Antiquitias, Vol. I. pp. 84 and 36.
• Of the four copper-plate inscriptions with season-dates hitherto discovered the Hirahad agalli plates of the Pallava Sivaskaudavarian, Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 5; the Devagere plates of the Kadamba Mrigésavaran. Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 37; the Halsi plates of the reign of the Kadamba Ravivarinal, ibid. Vol. VI. p. 28; and the Dudin plates of the V&kataka Pravarasena II., above, Vol. III. p. 260) the latest, that of the Vakataka Pravarasêne II.. bas with great probability been referred to about the beginning of the 8th century A.D.-The latest known copper plate inscriptions with numerical symbols, the time of which can be fixed with certainty, are all anterior to A.D. 800. So far as I know, they are the Nausart plates of the Gujarat Chalukya Pulakésirdja of Chedi-Samvat 490-A.D. 738, Vienna Oriental Congress, Arian Section, p. 230; the Antroli.Chharðli plates of the Rashtrakta Wing Kakka of Gujarat of Saka-Samvat 679=A.D. 757, Jour. Bo. 41. 800. Vol. XVI. p. 106; the Alina plutes of sladitya (VII.) DhrQbhata of [Vulsbhf.Samvat 447=AD. 766-67, Gupta Inscr. p. 178 ; and the Bengal As. Soc.'s plate of the Maharaja Vinayakapáls of (Harsha-]Samvat 188= A.D. 794 (P), Ind. Ant. Vol. XV. p. 140.
From impressions supplied by Dr. Hultzech. . Expressed by a symbol.
Read kundinama, * Read -dvabhrith.d.; the word avabhritha is frequently written avabhrita in inscriptions ; compare, 6.0.. Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 16, 1. 5; p. 186, 1.4; p. 211, 1. 9; and Vol. XIX. p. 17, L. 5.
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