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No. 47.]
THE ADDANKI STONE INSCRIPTION OF PANDARANGA.
273
the Bezwada inscription. The absence of forms ending in mu or mmu and the frequent use of mbu instead would show that in early periods the latter was the only form adopted and that the former two are later developments of it. Scansion would require the elision of the basic l in golelchiya (1, 6), cf. goragalga in 1. 10 of the Yuddhamalla inscription.
The metre Taruvoja1 in which the verse is written is a group of eight Dvipadas, whose two feet form one pada of it. The verse is transcribed below according to the modern Telugu orthography, showing the four feet separately; the präsa (rhyming) letters are underlined and the places of yati (caesura) are shown by asterisk and the ardhanusvära is represented by a semi-circle . This long metre did not find much favour with the Telugu poets. On the other hand, the Dripada metre is a very popular one.
1 Pattambu (gattina prathamambu nemḍu* balagarvvam-oppaga (*bai lechi sena2 Pattambu gaṭṭimchi* prabhu (Bandaramgu* bhanchina samamta paḍu vasō bōya 3 Kottamul pamḍremḍu goni Vēmgi-nāmți (* go[le]lchi ya Tribhuvanam* kusabana nilpi
4 Kattepudurgaṁbu
gadu bayal chesi Kamdukur-Bbejavāda
gavimche mechchi Pandaranga was the minister of Gupaga-Vijayaditya III of the Eastern Chalukya line. In almost every grant of Vijayaditya the name of Panḍaranga is found as the executor (ajfapti). This king ruled from A.D. 844 to 888. We are told in this inscription that Pandaranga was made the commander-in-chief of the army in the first year of the king's coronation. The date of the inscription therefore can safely be put as A.D. 844-5.
Pandaranga took twelve kottams of the Boyas, established the flags (or sovereignty) of the kings of Vengi-näpdu, and laid bare the fort of Katte (Kattepu-durgamu). He was a Parama Mahesvara (great worshipper of Siva) and gave certain lands to the Aditya-Bhaṭāra (Sun-god) at Dammavuram.
This inscription is very important to the students of Telugu literature, as it furnishes a positive evidence of the existence of Telugu poetry in the middle of the 9th century A.D. The oldest Telugu work now extant is the Mahabharata of Nannaya-Bhatta, the Poet Laureate in the court of the Eastern Chalukya Rajaraja I (A.D. 1022-1063) of Rajahmundry. It was, therefore, believed by many Telugu scholars that the beginnings of the Telugu poetry could not go But the Bezwada pillar to a period earlier than the eleventh century of the Christian era. inscription of Yuddhamalla took it a century back. The present inscription takes it a century further still.
Of the places mentioned in this inscription Dammavurarhbu (11. 10-11) is the village of Dharmavaram which is not far off from Addanki and where two more stone inscriptions" of Panḍaranga are to be noticed. The reading Kandukur-Bejavaḍa' in 1. 8 is doubtful. But at Kandukur we have a stone inscription of Pandaranga, containing a Telugu verse in Sisa metre. Pandaranga claims to have conquered twelve kottams of the Boyas. Kottam is-an ancient geographical and administrative division, generally met with in Tamil inscriptions. It was bigger than the nadu and smaller than the mandalam. We have Koṭṭām-sima in the Godavari district,
1 Brown's Grammer of the Telugu Language, Book XI.
Nellore Inscriptions, Vol. II, Ongole Nos. 39 and 40. I believe these two inseriptions are also in verse. Ibid., Vol. 11, p. 544. Kandukur Nos. 31 and 32, It is a matter for regret that the original stone of this inscription which was removed to the taluk office from Ramaswami-meda in Kandukur town by Mr. Venugopal Chetty is now missing.
3 L
