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No. 127 TWO SINDA INSCRIPTIONS FROM BENACHAMATTI, SAKA 1088 & 1109. 109
No. 12.-TWO SINDA INSCRIPTIONS FROM BENACHAMATTI, SAKA 1088 AND
SAKA 1109.
BY R. S. PANCHAMUKHI, M.A., OOTACAMUND. These two records are engraved on a stone tablet lying in front of the temple of Távara at Benachamatti in the Gajēndragad State which is included in the Ron taluk of the Dhärwär district. They are edited here for the first time from the estampages secured by me under the orders of the Government Epigraphist for India in the year 1927-28.1. The first inscription covers an area of 2' 91' by 2' 31", the size of each letter being about 1' in height. The area occupied by the second inscription is 2' 31" by 61' and the size of each letter is roughly t". The latter is the continuation of the former. I am calling them A and B respectively for the sake of convenience. They are in a fairly good state of preservation excepting that some letters of B are lost at the right corner of the lower edge where the stone is broken.
Both the inscriptions are Kannada records of the twelfth century of the Christian era. In A the long iis distinguished from the short one by an inside coil at the top as in păthina (1.1), Chandaladēvi (1. 19), etc.; the -sign at times has a short downward bend by the side of the letter with which it is connected as, for example, in Chāvunda (1. 10), sudhā (1. 11), etc.; the ai-sign is represented, in some cases, by a horizontal line at the bottom of the letter concerned with a curve on the left side and, in others, by a cursive upward stroke shooting from the bottom to the right end, as in Mandara-dhairyyam (1. 18), sainyaṁ (1. 26); the letters m, y and v have very often been represented by their special cursive forms as in baliyim (1. 6), 'y-aliyan (1. 7), and devāyatanamuman (1. 37) respectively; the anusvāra is written by the side of the letter connected therewith in four places, i.e., in yenisidam (1. 19), kularngaļim (1. 29), dēv-āyatanamumam (1. 37) and gāṁbhirya (1. 42). The Orthography is generally free from errors. It may be noted that in A the engraver has filled up the space left at the end of lines 3, 6, 10, 12, 13, 20, 24, 35, 38, 41, 46, 49, 51 and 52 by the addition of a superfluous mark resembling the English letter S. In B the consonant la is, in several places, wrongly used for la, as in paļa (11. 3, 5 and 6), kalegalolu (1. 5), etc., and the letter te in Nõhilana teradi (1. 4) is written like le.
Excepting the first verse which is in Sanskrit, A is written in Kannada poetry interspersed with prose in II. 8, 10, 31, 32, 36-38 and 44-54. B is also composed in Kannada poetry with a prose passage in 11. 10-16.
After the usual invocation to Sambhu (i.e., Siva), A describes the ocean (11. 2-3), the Jambudvips and the Mēru mountain (ll. 3-4), the Kumtala country and its past kings (11. 4-5) and the reigning sovereign Kaļachurya Bijjana who is stated to have wrested the royal glory from the (Western) Chāļukyas (11. 5-7). It then introduces Bijjana's son-in-law Chāvunda-nfipa of the Sinda family whose pedigree is given in lines 8-29. Further it tells us that, of the seven brothers-namely Acharasa, Nāka, Simga, Dāsa, Dāvana, Chāvunda and ChāvaChăvunda was a powerful warrior and that to Acharasa was born Bammarasa, a moon to the ocean of the Sinda family. His brother was the renowned Acharasa (II), son of Simha for Singa). To him were born Perma by queen Mahadēvi and Chāvunda (II) by queen Chamdaladēvi. Of Chăvupda it is recorded that when the Hoysala king met him with a huge army, the Sinda prince destroyed its general together with other opponents and captured his elephants in large numbers. Again when the Pandya chieftain Kāmanripa waged a War against Chāvunda with a view to conquer him, he met with a crushing defeat and had to flee away for life in the forest. When Chávunda was saling his territory from his capital at Erambarage (which is compared in lines 28-31 to the celestial Amarāvati, Ayodhyā, Mathurā and Ujjayini), the Fifty Families of Telligas extolled in 11. 32-36 constructed the
Nos. 31 and 32 of 1927-28 of the Bombay Karnatak Collection. App. B. A. R. on 8.1. Frigraphy, 1927.
