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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. XI.
Peddamadiyam' and on another at Muddanir, both of which bear records of about the same age as the subjoined inscription and belong, evidently, also to members of the same family. That these figures represent a lion and not a tiger, receives confirmation from an unexpected source. In a record of the 11th century A.D. from the Bastar State, it is stated that & chief named Chandraditya, a feudatory of the Nagavamsi king JagadēkabhashanaMaharaja Dharivarsba, was a descendant of Karikala-Chola of the solar race, belonged to the Kaśyapa-gotra, was the lord of the river Kävēri (Cauvery) and of the historic) town of Oraiyur (Uraiyur in the Trichinopoly district) and bore the lion-crest. As the kings mentioned in the Malēpädu plates will also be seen from the sequel to have possessed almost the same family-titles, and as it is not improbable that Chandräditya of Bastar (whose capital was Ammagima“) may have been a later member connected with some collateral branch of this same family, it may be assumed for the present, that the crest figured on the seal of the Malēpådu plates, is a lion like that of Chandräditya of Bastar. It is curious to note also that Sir Walter Elliot in his Coins of Southern India (Plate II, Nos. 49 to 54) refers to certain specimens which bear on their obverse sides the same figure as the one under discussion and tentatively attributes them to the Pallava kings of Vongi. The monolithio shrine at Siyamangalam which was excavated in the time of the Pallava king Lalitánkura (i.e., Mahendravarman I.) about the beginning of the 7th century A.D., also bears sculptures of two identical lions wbich face one another and are similar in design to the lion depicted on the Muddandr stone (see accompany. ing plate), The seals of Indravarman and Vikramendravarman II.7 of the Vishnukundin family and that of the Uruvapalli plates of the early Pallava king Yuvamahārāja Vishnugopavarman bear similar figures. A small signet of lapis lazuli discovered among the Boddhist ruins of Amaravati has on it the representation of a lion with the open mouth and the raised left foreleg together with the legend Bhūtisa written in early Brühmi characters of the 3rd century B.C.' Ancient coins recently found at Boijanakonda in the Vizagapatam distriot by the Superintendent, Archeological Survey, Madras, bear almost the same crest on their obverse sides.10
The writing on the plates belongs to the Southern class of alphabets and closely resembles that of the Ederu plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Vijayaditya II (A.D. 799 to 843).11 The horizontal top-strokes, often left unfinished in our plates, indicate perhaps an even earlier stage of development. Accordingly, in many cases, we find two points (one on each side of the letter) taking the place of a complete top line. The letter k is distinguished from r by a vertical stem which projecting from the top of the right side of the latter, supports over it the talakattu
1 No. 251 of the Madras Epigraphical collection for 1905. 2 No. 406 of the same collection for 1904. * No. 231 of the same collection for 1908. • Madras Epigraphical Report for 1908-9, p. 112.
Above, Vol. VI, p. 320. • Madras Epigraphical Report for 1908-9, p. 110, paragraph 62. * Above, Vol. IV, Plate, facing p. 244.
Ind. Ant., Vol. V, Plate, facing p. 50. • Director-General's Archæological Assal for 1905-6., p. 166.
10 Madras Epigraphical Report for 1908-9, p. 5, paragraph 5. The tiger crest of the Hoysalas figured on the frontispiece of Mr. Rice's Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. V., has also got the twisted tail, the mane, the conventional slender waist, and the face of a lion Sir Walter Elliot interprets similar gures (?) on two Hoysals gold coins (South Indian Coins, p. 152 D, Nos. 90 and 91) as maned lions. In the legend about Sala, the founder of the Hoysalo, the Kanarese word used is puli which distinctly means a tiger'. It is not altogether impossible that a tiger was also represented by the artists of the day, with the mane and other features that were naturally characters istic of a lion. It is stated in the Sukranitisara (IV, iv, 167) that a tiger and a lion have almost the same form, the difference being only in the mane which the latter possesses.
- Above, Vol. V, Plate, facing p. 120.
