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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XI.
yuin Grishna- (102 f.), -anumigran-butri (104 f.), -Nārāyanundu-(105 f.), -puţanbulai bari(123), and vēdin jēva (125 f.). In all these places, metre requires the ardhänustāra only; and this was, no doubt, what was intended to be read. The use of the complete circle which is the sign of the full anusrära to denote the half-anuseara, is common in inscriptions and in old manuscripts and shows that the modern sign of the ardhānusvāra-ie the left half of a circle, had 'not yet come into vogue at the beginning of the 15th century A.D. It shows also that "ardhanusvāra was pārnānusvāra incompletely pronounced,' as the author of the Andhrabhāshūthūshanam puts it, and disproves the view of some of the later grammarians who seem to think that ardhānusvāra was the earlier and purnānusvāra the later form of the sound. It also falsifies the much bolder theory of the late Prof. M. Seshagiri Sastri who held that ardhānusvāra simply denotes the elision of a consonant. In modern Telugu the words pūchi, dichi, and nochi are pronounced only with an ardhānusvāra after the first vowel, bat Nannichoda, in his Kumarasambhavam, used these words as pūñchi, dāñchi ard nõñchi and made them rhyme with enchi, and even now we hear, in the Guntur, Nellore, and the Ceded Districts, rāndu for tādu (he), tūñchu for tūchu (weigb), minda for mida (above), penta for pola (market town) and penda for pēda (dang). In the Roman text of the Telugu portion of the inscriptions, the anusvīra to be elided is printed in italics.
The language of the inscription is partly Sanskrit and partly Telugu and it is throughout in verse. The sixth and seventh verses are also found in the Sringāradipikā, a commentary on the Amarušataka by Kömaţi-Vēma?, and the thirteenth verse is taken, with a slight modification, from the Aladras Museum plates of Vēma. The first verse is devoted to the praise of the boar-incarnation of Vishņu and the second and third to the praise of the Sun and Moon, and Vinayaka. In the next verse, the poet appropriately enlogizes the feet of Vishnu which gave birth to the (Sūdra) caste, which is a veritable ocean of good qualities. In that caste was born king Vēma who was 'a seventh emperor, as it were, and an eleventh incarnation of Vishộu' (v. 5). Vēma ruled for a long time, enjoying what was left of the kingdom after enjoyment by Brāhmaṇs, and constructed the flight of steps from Pātālagarga to the summit of the Srisaila as if to climb up to the abode of Siva (v. 6). He had an elder brother named Mācha, who had three sons, viz., king Reddivota, sri-Komatindra, and king Nāga, who were like dharma, artha, and kama personified (v.7). Ped[*]a-Komați begot a son named Vēma- as great as Karņa in charities- even as the ocean begot the moon (v. 8). Verses 9 and 11 describe the military greatness of Vēma, while vv. 10, 12 and 13 praise his charities which extended from Srisaila to Käsi (Benares), touching on the way Kumārāchala, Panchārāma, Simháchala, Srikürma and Purushottama. The queen of this king was Sāramāmbikā, who, on the second day of the dark fortnight of the month of Phālguna in the year Virõdhi corresponding to the Saka year counted by the moon, Rāmas, Rāmas and the earth (1331), performed the ceremony of pratishthā (completion and dedication to public use of the tank called Santānapayonidhi (vv. 14 and 15). The next three verses contain a hyperbolical description of the tank, and then follow three verses from the Mahabharata on the merit of digging tanks. The last Sanskrit verse tells us that this pare dharmaśāsana was composed by Srinātha who was the Vidyādhikarin of Vēma and a storehouse of learning.
The three Teluga verses that are engraved on the east face of the pillar, are in the Sisa metre, each verse consisting of four long lines in the proper Sisa metre followed by four
1 See his Theory of Ardhanusrāra, Edition of 1892.
See the late Rai Bahadur Venkayya's remarks on the Phirangipuram inscription, in his Report on Epigraphy for 1900, p. 21, paragraph 55.
* Above, Vol. VIII, pp. 98.
That is, as great as any of the six emperors (chatchakravartin) spoken of in the Pariņm.
