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204
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VÜL. XII.
This tells us that :- "On the southern bank of the Kirudore, at the eminent sito Muttūr of Kuruvatti, the saint Guņaga!ladovu founded a place which the world knows well as a Siddhatirtha (a sacred resort of pious people]."
Now, it seemed not unreasonable to expect to find Kuruvatti somewhere near Tambigere and Mosalemadu, both of which places are close to the Tangabhadrā, within six miles on the east of it and the Tangabhadrā is the only river of any importance in that neighbourhood which could be regarded as having anywhere a south bauk.
But further, a Balagūmi inscription of A.D. 1068 tells us that it was at Kuruvatti and in the Tungabhadrā that the Western Chalukya king Ābavamalla-Sõmēsvara Iby a supreme act of austerity ascended to heaven ";the referenco being to the fact related in the Vikramaakadhvacharita, IV, 44-68, that the king in question, being attacked by a malignant faver for which no remedies were found to be of any avail, went to the Tungabbadra, and there, after bathing aud meditating on Siva, wolked into the river until its waters reached his throat, and so ended his own life.
Everything being taken together, it could hardly be doubted that the two inscriptions refer to one and the same Kuruvatti, and that consequently the Kirudore must be the Tungebhadra. And I find Kuruvatti in a place which still exists under the same name in the Harpan halli täluka: it is ahown in the Indian Atlas sheet 42 (1827) as 'Hoera Cooravutty', i.e. Hirė-Kuruvatti, " the largor, senior, or older Kuruvatti," in lat. 14° 46', long. 75° 46': it is on the Tungabhadra, at about seventeen miles dae west of Harpanhalli and at the same distance towards the north-west from the places Tumbigere and Mosalemavu which have been mentioned above, and is a place of pilgrimage, with a fort and a temple of Siva which is said to be a fine one. This place, indeed, is on what is actually at that point the north bank of the Tungabhadra, which there munkes a bend of about four miles from east to west ; but that bank is in reality the south bank of the river with reference to its general course from south-west to north-east: however, the record of A.D. 1071 places on the south bank, not Kuruvatti itself, but "Muttür of Kupuvatti"; and this place may very well be identified with the Chik Koorwutty' of the map, on the opposite bank, ---really the north one, but actually the south bank at that point.
The identification of the Kirudore with the Tungabhadrã, thus arrived at, is well confirmed by finding also Mukkunde, which is placed by the Yowūr inscription B on the Kirudore, in the Mookoondi' of the map on the Tungabhadrā (see p. 272 above).
On this matter it only maius to add that this name Kirudore," the little river," seems to have been applied to the Tungabhadrā by way of contrast with Perdore, Peldore, "the great river," which is well known as a name of the Krishņā, into which the lungabhadrå flows about sixteen miles north-north-easto Karnal in Madras.
Tho record is Epi. Carn., Vol. VII, Shimoga, Sk. 136. Here, and indeed possibly in the inscription of A.D. 1071 (the photograph of which is on a small scale), the name of the place is perhaps written Kuruvartti.--The date of the death of Somöbvarn I seems to be given in this record as Chaitra krishna 8, Ravivira (Sunday), of the Kilaka samvatsara, Saka 990 (expired): the tithi answers to 29 March, A.D. 1068, on which it ended at about 14 hrs. 40 min. after mon sunrise (for Ujjain); but the weekday was a Saturday.
? See, e.g. Ind. Ant., Vol. V, p. 319.
Madras Manual of the Administration, Vol. III (1893), p. 349; and Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, Madras, Vol. 1. p. 109, where we are also told there is an inscription : this record remains to be explored.
For the Dame Kirudore I fud two other references, as follows:- An inscription which is supposed to be of about A.D. 800, Epi: Cars, Vol. X, Kolar, Sp. 80, mentions three chiefs, Nolamba, Cholu-permanadi, and Mayinda, as "governing with the Kiru-tore as the boundary:" and an inscription which is supposed to be of aliout A.D. 900, ibid., Bg. 62, mentions a Vaidamba-mahărāja 18 "ruling the earth with the Kirudore as the boundary." There is nothing in either of these two records to help to identify the river; and it is possible, if tot probable, that the name here deuotes some other river than the Tungabhadra just as the name Beddore or Peddore= Perdore, was also used to denote some river in Coorg which was at any rato not the Krishna ; see Ind. Ant., Vol. VI, pp. 100, 102, 103.
