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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVIII
the second line, if read as putra [nam] would show that the first three persons were the sons of Ramaka. The inscription must have been incised to commemorate some pious act or the erection of some building by these three brothers.
TEXT.
340
1...[ksha]trapasya Sv[a]mi Jivadamasya ētāya purvvaya1 varsh[e] 100 .... 2[Va]stradattasya Västuna[th]dikasya Vas[tularmmakasya Ramakasya pute[]....
NOTES.
1. 1 (a) The upper part of the ligature in ksha is broken.
(b) The cross bar in sha in varshe is damaged.
(c) The last letter looks like sa but the downward prolongation of the right vertical makes it certain that this letter is the symbol for 100.
1. 2 The restoration [Va] stradatta is tentative. The reading may be [Sa]stradatta or [A];tradatta.
The form of Va in Vastunamdika is peculiar. The base line is very much curved and the upper horizontal line has disappeared giving place to two curved lines which appear like bifurcations of the vertical.
TRANSLATION.
.... of the [Maha]kshatrapa Svāmi Jivadaman, on the above mentioned, in the year 100...[Va]stradatta, Västunamdika (Vastunandin), Vastusarmmaka, the sons of Ramaka......
No. 40. PERUNEYIL RECORD OF KULASEKHARA-KOYILADHIKARI.
BY A. S. RAMANATHA AYYAR, B.A., MADRAS.
This inscription is engraved on a slab set up in the western prākāra of the Vishnu temple at Peraneyil, a suburb of Changanacheri which is a taluk-centre in the Kōṭṭayam Division of the Travancore State. It is in clear-cut and well-preserved Vaṭṭeluttu characters, which can, from purely palæographical considerations, be assigned to the 11th century A.D. or thereabouts. The language of the record is Tamil, sprinkled with a few dialectical peculiarities of the West Coast e.g., irunn-aruli (l. 15), aruliyar (l. 23), olla (l. 41), vannu (1. 58), and adikkumad-oliññöm (Z. 61-63).
The record which is dated in the 8th year opposite the 2nd year of the reign of a certain king named Kulasekhara-Kōyiladhikarigal, presumably of the Chera dynasty, does not give the exact Kollam year but mentions simply the vague astronomical detail that Jupiter was in Karkaṭaka. But this defect, as will be proved below, is mended by two other inscriptions secured from Quilon and Tiruvälür', both of which are also in the Travancore State. The date portions in these two inscriptions run thus:
1. Kollan-tonriyirunurr-elupatt-eṭṭām-aṇḍai Kanniyil Viyālam pukka Chiñña ñāyiru onpadu senra nāļ iranḍām-anda ikk edir padinōrā]m-āṇḍaiy=[I]ra[ma]r' Truvaḍi Köyiladikarigal ayina éri-Kulasekhara-chChakkira vattiga] Kurakkēņi-kKollattu Pagainnavin köyilagate-irunnarula.
[This phrase usually follows the date.-Ed.]
2.Trav. Archl. Series, Vol. V, p. 44. No. 54 of App. B of Archaeological Survey Report (Travancore) for 1919-20.
Ibid, Vol. IV, p. 145. See p. 47 of the Archaeological Survey Report (Travancore) for 1919-2. This portion is somewhat damaged ; an alternative reading of Kö-Räman is also possible.
