Epigraphia Indica Vol 13

Author(s): Sten Konow, F W Thomas
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 31

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. XIII.
No. 2.-NIDAGUNDI INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF VIKRAMADITYA VI
AND THE KADAMBA TAILAPA II: A.D. 1107.
BY LIONEL D. BARNETT. Nidagundi is a village about four miles towards the south-south-west from Shiggaon, the head-quarters of the Bankäpar tāluka of the Dharwār District, Bombay. It is shown in the Map of the Dhārwar Collectorate (1874) as Needgoondee', and in the Indian Atlas shett 42 (1827, with additions to 1891) as Neergoondee', in lat. 14° 56', long. 75° 15'. A record from this village, of the time of the Rāshtrakūta king Amoghavarsha I and dating from about A.D. 874, which has been edited by Dr. Fleet in vol. 7 above, p. 212, shows that the ancient form of its name was Nidugundage, which is also found in line 9-10 of the record now edited, and that it was the chief town of a group of villages known as the Nidugundage twelve. The inscription which I now edit, from an ink-impression placed at my disposal by Dr. Fleet, is on a stone tablet which was found somewhere at this same village, and was removed, for safe storage, along with the stone boaring the other record mentioned just above, to the Kacheri at
Shiggaon.
Part of the top of the stone bearing this record is broken away and lost; and of the sculptures which were there there remain now only the following: in the centre, a liriga on an abhishēka-stand; on the right, the bull Nandi, kneeling towards the liriga, with the moon above him; and on the left, the lower part of a figure seated with its legs crossed on a small pedestal. --The area covered by the inscription is rather irregular in shape : its extreme measures are about l'8" in width by 2' 3" in height. The record is mostly in a state of excellent preservation : the few letters which are damaged or missing can be supplied without any uncertainty, except in the last line.
The characters are Kanarese, of a nearly upright rounded type characteristic of the period. They are not very elegantly formed, and they are of anequal size : in the first five lines they vary in height between 1 and 1", and in the rest of the inscription their height is approximately between " and " They present the abbreviated forms of m and y noticed under Yēwar inscription F (above, Vol. XII, p. 335) : the m appears as the sixth akshara in 1. 16, the y at the end of 1. 18.-The language is Kanarese prose throughout, except for the minatory Sanskrit Verse in 11. 21-23. The Kanarese is almost of the medieval type: the liquid I only occurs once (in ildu, 1. 16, beside irddri, 1. 14), elsewhere appearing as !; and initial p is changed to h in hēringe (1. 14), hanna (1. 15), hēr. (1. 17), while remaining in Panungall- (1.9), panav(1. 15), pērin- (1. 17).
The purport of the inscription is to record donations by various traders to the Mülastbåna god, or chief god of the locality-the Metropolitan deity, as he may be called. This title is fairly common; for examples see above, vol. 5, pp. 22, 143, 149; Epi. Carn., vol. 3, Mysore, pp. 181, 189, 201. The record is dated in the reign of the Western Chalukya king Tribhuvanemalle(Vikramaditya VI), under whom, it tells us, the Kadamba prince Tailapa, who among other titles bears that of Banavāsi-puravar-adbisvara, " lord of Banavāsi a best of cities", was ruling over the Pānumgal Alve-hundred, i.e. the province, comprising five hundred cities, towns, and villages, of which the capital was Pānungal. This latter person is the Kādambe prince Tailapa II, son of Santivarman II: he is known to have rulei until A.D. 1189, in quocession to Kirtivarman IT, 8 a feudatory of Vikramaditya VI and Somosvara III. The name of his family is presented here (line 7) as Kadamba, with the short a in the first syllable, and