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No. 32.]
A CHOLA INSCRIPTION FROM UTTIRAMERUR.
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Johnston that Gājāyans as a patronymic is unknown. But Mr. Ghosh has correctly observed that a name similar to Gājāyana is Gadāyana (with its variant Gödāyana) occurring in the MatsyaPurana as the name of an individual göra. And it is not at all improbable to say that Gādāyans is a slip of the scribe for Gājāyana. Whether Sarvatāta, again, is the proper name or an epithet of the king is somewhat doubtful. It bears, however, the plausibility of being an epithet.
But kings even in ancient times were sometimes better known by their epithets than by their individual names. Thus the Maurya emperor, Asoka, has styled himself Priyadarsin, which is an epithet, in all his inscriptions, except one; in this last alone he is known by his proper name, Asoka. And even though Sarvatāta is taken as an epithet as seems very likely, it need cause us no surprise. The question now arises, who could this Gājāyana Sarvatāta be? His records show that he lived in the first century B.C. His patronymic Gājāyana also shows that he was a Brāhmaṇ. And further we have to note, as Mr. Ghosh has told us, that Gādāyana which obviously is a mistake for Gājāyana is mentioned in the Matsya-Purāna as an individual götra falling under the Kānva division of the Angiras Gana. It thus appears that Sarvatáta was a Kāņva. And we know from the Puranas that after the Sungas the Kāņvas became the rulers of North India. The Kāņvas thus exercised supremacy in the first century B.C. Nothing therefore precludes us from supposing that Sarvatāta was a Kanva ruler. It is true that Sarvatāta is not found in the list of names, given by the Purāņas, of the Kāņva rulers. But as we have seen above, Sarvatāta is not a proper name, but rather an epithet. And it is not at all impossible that it was an epithet borne by one of the princes of this Brāhmaṇ dynasty.
No. 32.-A CHOLA INSCRIPTION FROM UTTIRAMERUR.
BY PROPESBOR K. A. NILAKANTA SASTRI, MADRAS. The inscription edited below has been noticed briefly in the Annual Report on South-Indian Epigraphy for 1923, Part II, paragraph 28. It is engraved on & stone slab built into the south wall of the Hanuman shrine in front of the Sundaravarada perumal temple, Uttiramērür. The inscription which fully covers the face of the slab occupies an area 13" x 37", and the average height of the letters is 1", the ligatures sometimes measuring up to 2" and more. Only eight lines of the inscription at the beginning are preserved, but it seems unlikely that the missing part extended over more than two or three lines. In any case, what is left of the inscription enables us to form an adequate idea of its purport and significance. I edit it from two impressions, one in my possession, the other supplied by the Superintendent for Epigraphy, Madras.
The inscription is dated in the 158th day of the ninth year of king Rājarājakēsarivarman, i.e. Rājarāja I, and thus belongs to A.D. 993-4, the reign of that king having commenced on some day in the month following the 25th June, 985 A.D. Paleographically, the inscription bears a very close resemblance to the other stone inscriptions of Rājarāja's reign, the alphabet being Tamil with the usual admixture of Grantha for Sanskrit words.
The language of the inscription is Tamil. The grammatical.construction of the main sentence of the vyavasthā is faulty; it seems to follow local colloquial usage, but the meaning is clear. Note
1 Ind. Ant., Vol. LXI, p. 204. No. 197 of 1923. Marked Peruma! Koil in the plan of Uttiramērår in my Studies in Cöla History and Administration.
Cf. Nos. 176 of 1908 and 298 of 1908 of the Madras Epigraphical Collection, . Above, Vol. IX, p. 217.
