________________
NO. 35.]
MALEPADU PLATES OF PUNYAKUMARA.
341
the South whom Karikala is stated to have subdued were, evidently, the Pandya, Chola and Kēralal as specified in l. 9 of the text, in connection with Mahendravikramavarman-a later member of this same family. The inclusion of the Chola among the kings conquered, although it is wrong, is, nevertheless, meant to show that Karikala virtually ruled over the whole of Southern India. The Tamil poem Sila ppadigaram says of him that he was an of Avanti and the overlord of Vajra and Magadha.
Of Nandivarman and bis three sons Simbavishnu, Sundarananda and Dhananjayavarman we do not know much at present. The first two wames bear resemolance to Pallava pames. Sandarananda figures as one of the ancestors of an unidentified Teluga-Choda chief Srikaạtha whose Madras Museum plates have been noticed by Professor Kielhorn in one of the previous volumes of this joarnal. A certain Dhanamjaya Eriga referred to in some epigraphical records from the Maddagiri taluka of the Tumkur district calls himself & Chola ruling the Aļvādi six hundred district. Mr. Rice assigps these records, on palæographical evidence, to about the middle of the 8th century A.D. 'The Cholas of the Tumkur district (round Nidugal and Hēmăvati) may have been of a common stock with the Cholas of Cuddapah, and Dhanamjaya Eriga was either directly or indirectly connected with 'Dhanamjayavarman of the Mālēpādu plates. Again, a stone record at Kalamalla in the Cuddapah district makes mention of a certain D[h]anam jeyundu who was ruling Rēnāņdu. The record is not dated; but to judge from the characters, it may roughly be referred to the same period as the Målēpādu plates. It is, therefore, not unlikely that we have here a direct reference to Dhananjayavarman, the last son of Nandivarman. Mahendravikramavarman who assumed the titles Chola-Mahārāja, Mudita. silākshara and Navarāma, appears to have been so named after Mahöndravikrama, a name or surname of Mabendravarman I.,& the Pallava contemporary of the Western Chalukya king Pulakesin II., in the 7th century A.D.7 After Gunamudita, of whom nothing is stated in the inscription, came Punyakumara Pormukharima to whose reign our grant belongs. Two of the birudas assumed by him, viz. Márdavachitta and Madanavilăsa indicate some apparent affinity to Mattavilāsa and Vichitrachitta, the recognised birudas of Mahendravarman 1.8 This resemblance in the birudas suggests, as will be pointed out below, the possibility of some undefined relationship, political or otherwise, that may have existed between the Cholas of the Cuddapah district and the Pallavas of Kāñchi.
Punyakumira, we are told, addressed his order to the inhabitants of his own dominion and to those of Hiranyarashtra. The latter territorial division, though not actually included in the province governed by Punyakumara, must have been bordering on it and perhaps also subordinate to him. It is not impossible that this was actually the kingdom ruled by Kottikuldarāja,
1 Tamil literature refers to the battle at Vennil where Karikäla defeated the Chers and the Pandys kings" (Ind. Ant., Vol. XLI, p. 146). It is not impossible to interpret the word trairajya-sthiti of 1. 4 in the sense of " the position of trairajya". In Western Chalukys copper-plates the Pallava King is often referred to as Trairajya-Pallara or Trairajya-Kaichipati, where trairājya evidently denotes the sovereignty over the whole of Southern India.
Above, Vol. X, pp. 26f.
"Above, Vol. V, p. 123, note. Professor Kielhorn who has compared the palmography of these with that of the Mwalipatam plates of Vijayaditya III. (A.D. 844-888), is of opinion that the Madras Museum plates of Srikantha are also of about the same period. It may be pointed out that an ancient coin of about the 4th or 5th century A.D., discovered at Bojjanakonda, bears on one of its sides the legend Srikanta and on the other the Pallavá symbol of the vase and the lion (Madras Epigraphical Report for 1908-9, Part I, paragraph 5).
• Ep. Carn., Vol. XII, Introduction, p. (7). . No. 380 of the Madras Epigraphical collection for 1904.
• 4. S. R. for 1903-4, p. 271, and Madras Epigraphical Report for 1908-9, Part IT, paragraph 14. The names Navarāms and Mahendra varman also occur in the platos of Srikantha noticed above.
1 Dyr. Kan. Distr., p. 350. • Madras Epigraphical Report for 1908-9, Part II, paragraph 14.
