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364
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA,
[VOL. XIV.
No. 28.-TUPPAD-KURHATTI INSCRIPTION OF THE REIGN OF AKALAVARSHA
KRISHNA III: SAKA 868.
BY LIONEL D. BARNETT. Tuppad-Kurhatti is a village of Navalgund Taluk, Dharwår District, and lies in lat. 15°327 and long. 75° 32', about 9 miles nearly east of Navalgand town. Its name is spelt as "Tapadkurhatti" in the Postal Directory of the Bombay Circle, "Tupad Kurhatti" in the Bombay Survey sheet 332, and "Toopud Kooruttee" in the old Indian Atlas sheet 41. The name, correctly spelt, is Tuppada Kusihatti, "Kupihatti of 'the Butter," apparently on account of the excellence or abundance of the butter produced in the village. Kufihaffi, in Old Kanarese Kuripatti, means "ram's fold," and we find a semi-sanskritised variant of this in Mēshada-paffi (1. 31). Apparently the full name in ancient times was Karana-Guripatti, "Kuripatti of the Office" (11. 12-13). The stone bearing the present record was found in front of the temple of Maruti in the village, broken into two or three pieces. Ink-impressions of it were made for the late Dr. Fleet, and are now in the British Museum; from them I have edited the text.-The stone is a rectangular block; the top is surmounted by three triangalar finials, one in the middle and one at each corner. It contains on top two bands, each of which is divided by two columns into three compartments. The lower band has some sculptures, namely a litiga on a stand in the central compartment, a squatting figure in the proper right compartment, who holds something like a broom or a chowrie in his left hand, and a cow with sucking calf in the left compartment. Below this is an inscribed area about 1 ft. 114 in. wide and 3 ft. 4. in. high.-The character is good Kanarese of the period. Most of the letters are between in. and 1 in. high, though some are a little taller. The vowel signs and 7 are usually formed in the later manner; but occasionally they are written in the ancient fashion (e.g. Beļvola", I. 8, yyolam, 1. 19). The archaic subscript l in illa (1. 20) is also noteworthy. The palatal i appears in viñyāna (1. 11), a mistake for vijfiana which shews that it was pronounced by the writer in the same manner as by modern Tamils.-The language is Old Kanarese, except in the formal verses 1 and 2 (11. 23-27). The ! is preserved (ildu, 1. 14; nal-gámundara, l. 17; ēl, 11. 21, 22; alio, 11. 22, 23), except in one case, where it is written as(nar.ggamundam, 1. 14). Final m is sporadically changed to v before vowels in pădivav= (1.6) and nesanav(1. 19). There is an archaic participle-form in kādor (1. 21, in & formula). Lexically noteworthy are nesana, from the Sanskrit nivēšana (1. 19), the locative verb-noun modal (11. 29, 30 : Kittel gives only mudu and its parts), and hasta, apparently with the meaning of paksha (1. 30). We find a genitive used as a semi-nominative in Aychayyana madisida dēgulakke (1. 15: cf. my note in Journ. Roy. As. Soc., 1918, p. 105).
The record opens by referring itself in 11. 1-3 to the reign of Akalavarsha (the Rashtrakata Krishna III), and then states that in the year Paräbhava, Saka 868, while his viceroy Satyavākya Konguņivarma Permånadi, entitled “lord of Koļālapura best of cities" and “master of Nanda-giri," was governing Paligere and Belvola (1. 3-10), and the latter's subordinate Ayohayya was administering Karana-Garipatti (1l. 10-13), certain local officials granted lands for the maintenance of a temple founded by Aychayya (11. 13-20). Then come formule of the usual kind (11. 20-27), followed by a verse recording that on a certain date some years previously the god Ăychēśvara (i.e. the form of Siva worshipped in the above-mentioned temple founded by Aychayya) revealed himself in the town (11. 28-31); this may have been the event which led to the establishment of the temple, as was the case at Kurgod (above, p. 278). The viceroy Satyavākya-Kodguṇivarma Permånadi is evidently the same as the Ganga Bütuga, the son-in-law of the Rashtrakita Amoghavarsha-Vaddiga, and hence a brother-inlaw of Krishna III (see Dyn. Kanar. Distr., pp. 304, 419, 421, and the Gå warvad inscr. above).
1 See note on translatiou, below.
