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No. 35.]
MALEPADU PLATES OF PUNYAKUMARA.
village." The following other forms of raṭṭagudlu are also found in the Chola records of the Cuddapah district: (1) raṭṭedlu, (2) raṭṭaguṭṭu (perhaps the singular form of raṭṭaguḍlu) and (3) raṭṭāḍlu. Further, in some inscriptions, raṭṭagudi is found compounded with the name of a royal family, as Salki-Rattakudi, Chalki-Raṭṭagudi, Gagga-Raṭṭagudi, Vallava-Raṭṭagudi, CholiyaRaṭṭaguṭṭu, and Chola-Rattoḍi. In these forms apparently the first part denotes the dynasty Salki or Chalki (i.e. Chalukya), Gagga (Gaiga), Vallava (Pallava ? or Valiabha-Rashtrakt) and Choliya or Chōla, under whose patronage the dignity (paṭṭam) of raṭṭagudi was held by the individual or individuals who bore them. The familiar phrase rashtrakuṭa-pramukhān= kutumbinah, which occurs in copper plate inscriptions, shows also that the rashtrakutas were kuṭumbins cultivators' (kudi in Tamil) who enjoyed a higher social status than others of their community. The Reddis of the Telugu country according to their own account belong to the Panṭakula the cultivating caste' and command much respect. A class of Reddis in the Nizam's Dominions, is still known by the name Radradḍis which appears to me to be a reminiscence of the older honorific raṭṭoḍi. Thus the Sanskrit rashtrakuṭa and the modern reddi have to be traced to the form raṭṭagudi and its variants which were current in the Cuddapah district in the period of the lithic records under discussion.1
343
Six other stone epigraphs, from the Cuddapah district, begin with a short eulogy of the Chola kings, which is identically the same in all. The ruling chief is introduced by the general appellation Chola-Mahārāja and not by his proper name. Four allied records refer to an unnamed eldest son (prathama-priya-putra) of Vikramaditya Bempanadhiraja, a Vikramaditya-Chōla-Mahārāja and queen Elañchōla-Mahadevi and prince Satyaditunṛu, son of Śaktikomara Vikramaditya (and grandson of) Chōla-Mahārājādhirāja Vikramaditya. These are names not mentioned in the genealogical portion of the Malēpāḍu plates and consequently their relationship to Punyakumara, to whose family they must belong, is not certain. The general appellation Chola-Mahārāja, however, was, according to text line 8, first acquired by Mahendra vikramavarman, the father of Punyakumara. It is not improbable that the Chola-Maharaja mentioned in the six lithic records quoted above, is identical with Mahendra. vikramavarman. The province over which these Chola kings apparently ruled is stated in four records to have been the Renaṇḍu seven thousand. One stone epigraph from Mālēpāḍu (see Postscript, below) adds the district Siddhi one thousand, perhaps the same as the Siddhant country. A later inscription of the 12th century A.D. from Peddamuḍiyam,7 mentions the. Rēnāḍu seventy, which must have formed a sub-division of the Renaṇḍu seven thousand district. Mr. Ramayya Pantulu identifies Renaḍu with "the black-soil country which roughly includes large portions of the modern districts of Cuddapah and Kurnool, along the valley of the Kundéru river."
The period of the record could only be approximately fixed. The lion crest adopted by the Chola kings was, as we have seen, already familiar in the 3rd century B.C. It was a Buddhist symbol used also by the Pallavas of the 3rd and 4th centuries of the Christian era and
For a detailed criticism on the terms raṭṭa and rāshtrakuta see above, Vol. VII, p. 221 f. A similar development of the title Ganda from the earlier gramakūta, gamaüḍa has been maintained by Dr. Fleet, ibidem, p. 183. 2 Nos. 405, 406 and 408 of the Madras Epigraphical collection for 1904; No. 352 of the collection for 1905 and Nos. 466 and 517 of the collection for 1906.
This eulogy runs as follows:- Svasti sri ari-durdhara-vara-bhuj-asi-bhāsura prachanda-pradyotaDinakara-kula-nandana Katyapa-götra Karikal-anvaya-Hail! Prosperity! (Chola-Mahārāja) who is resplendent with an excellent sword in hand which his enemies could not oppose, who gladdens the family of the Sun whose rays are powerful, who belongs to the Kasyapa-götra (and) to the family of Karikala.'
No. 400 of the same collection.
No. 403 of the Madras Epigraphical collection for 1904.
No. 393 of the same collection. The text of this record with translation is published below, in a postscript. 1 No. 350 of the same collection for 1905 (below p. 344, n. 2). Inscriptions of the 16th century A.D. at Peddamudiyam and Dombara-Nandyals refer to the country in which these villages were situated as Kanata-Sima. in the Ghandikōta-rajya.
