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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. XXII.
chandas (i.e., grants made to Buddhist or Jain temples), and omitting such as had been excluded in survey,--should be given as & tax-free paļlichchanda to meet the requirements of the palli, i.e., the shrine of the Buddha in the Chūļamaņivarmavihāra which was being constructed by Chūļāmaņivarman, the king of Kadāram, at Nagapattanam in Pattapakūrram, & Bub-division of Kshatriyasikhāmaņi-vaļanāļu. This oral order of the king was committed to writing by the official who generally writes down the royal orders, was signed by four persons who bore the designation tirumandiravõlai-nāyagam, i.e., Superintendents of Royal Writs, and was issued. In accordance with it, it was ordered to be entered in the accounts by the officials bearing the designation karumamārāyum, i.e., Secretary, and naduviruklum, i.e., arbitrators, Four officials of the tax department styled puravuvari and three others styled vari ppottagam (i.e., maintainers of tax registers) being present, the entry in the state registers was made. This done, arrangements were made for drawing up the deed of gift, giving it to the donee and effecting the necessary changes in the divisional or village accounts. For the ceremony of walking along the boundaries taking round a female elephant, pointing out the limits and marking them with stones and milk-bush, one official called kaņkāni-naduvitukkum, i.e., superintendent of arbitrators, four Bhattas and one puravuvari officer were nominated; and a royal order was issued to the nātār, i.e., the members of the Divisional Assembly stating that they should be present with the nominated persons, point out in detail the boundaries and draw up and give the deed of assignment to the donee (11. 49-50). On hearing the approach of the royal mandate, the administrative body of the division went in advance, and paying obeisance to the order, received it on their heads and acted as directed in the order. The deed drawn up by them is actually what is incised on plates I to XVI (Tamil portion), which, after reciting the contents of the royal order noted above, gives in detail the boundaries of the lands comprising the village of Agaimangalam which is the object of the grant, specifies the conditions to be observed by the donees and the privileges to be enjoyed by them and bears the signatures of the persons that were present at the time of its being drafted. The names of the officials of Rājarāja I. that figure in this inscription, their designations and the villages with district and subdivision, to which they belonged, are given in List A; and the names of the persons who signed the deed, with their official designations, and the sabha or ürār of villages on whose behalf they attested it, are given in List B.
Here king Rājarāja I. is surnamed Rājarājakësarivarman and is said to have cut off the ships at Kāndaļūr-Sālai, to have taken Vengai-nādu, Gangapādi, Nuļambapādi, Tadigaipāļi, Kudamalai-nādu, Kollam, Kalingam and Ilamandalam with the aid of his highly powerful and victorious army, and to have deprived the Seliyas of their splendour. In the numerous collection of stone inscriptions of Rājarāja I., Kandaļūr-Sālai sometimes occurs in the shortened form Sālai. That it was an important place in the Chēra kingdom is made clear from the epithet " ViraPandyan talaiyum Seralan Salaiyum Ilangaiyum konda" (who took the head of Vira-Pandys, the Sālai of the Chēra king and Lankā) applied to the Chõļa king Rājādhirāja I.'; and that it was a port town having a large number of ships is evident from the phrase " eñjalil vēlai-kelu Kandalur-Salari" occurring in the historical introduction of the same king in describing his campaign against the Chēras. As the destruction of the ships at Kandaļūr-Sālai is first recorded in Rājarāja's stone
1 A. R. of the Trav. Arch. Department for 1920-21, p. 65.
+ Though Salai and kalam mean also feeding house 'and' vessel' it seems improper to introduce this senso of the words in the phrase Salai-lam-arutta and to say that the Chola king caused the discontinuance of "the feoding house or boarding school of the Chēras " (Trav. Arch. Series, Vol. II, p. 3f.) for, it would turn one of the important military achievements of that king, on which he may be said to have prided himself by repeating it in his deeds of glory (i.c., the historical introduction), into an ignoble act which the king would hardly have allowed to be mentioned in his meykirti.
