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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. XXIV.
55 Acuarefugn: [*]*(8) anat on (FT)(WAT ZETT
fara: [11] feweifax: 018: afet(81)at thafar 12 (4) 56 सूचमुक(क)दोजववा(बा)घा अमरौं लिपित्र(म)गमन ॥ संवत् १७.८ वर्षे
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No 12.-SRIRANGAM INSCRIPTION OF GARUDAVAHANA-BHATTA : SAKA 1415.
By A. S. RAMANATHA AYYAR, B.A., MADRAS.
The Ranganatha temple at Srirangam has been eulogised by several Aļvārs in the beautiful hymns of the Nālāyiraprabandham. It was also the place where many eminent acharyas including the great Rāmánuja and Manavāla-Mahāmuni had sojourned.
The subjoined record (A), which is complete and in a good state of preservation, is engraved on three sides of a well-dressed slab of stone set up in front of the Dhanvantari shrine in the fourth präkära of this temple. The documentary portion of this epigraph consists of one long sentence composed in correct Tamil prose; while here and there a few Sanskrit words, engraved in Grantha characters, add a certain piquancy to the style.
The record does not refer itself to the reign of any king or chieftain, but simply states that it was issued in the reginie of a certain Irandakalamedutta-Perumal alias Kudal Uttamanambi-Pillai. It is dated in Saka 1415, corresponding to the cyclio year Pramādi, on & Monday with panchami-tithi of the first fortnight and Pushya-nakshatra. These details give the English equivalent A. D. 1493, May 20, Monday.
The object of the inscription is to register a gift of 2 vēli of land made by Srinivāsa alias Sriranga-Garudaváhana-Bhatta, son of Alagiyamanavāla-Mangalädarāya, (a member) of the bhaftal-kotlu of the temple, who constructed a new the arogyasälai which had been formerly erected by an ancestor of his by name Garudavāhana-Bhatta in the time of Pratāpachakravartin and had enftered damage during the vānam, and installed therein an image of Dhanvantari-Emberuman. It is stated that this land, which was situated in Pandamangalam,' had been in the enjoyment of the earlier Garudavábana-Bhatta (and his descendants), having been granted to him u pallakku-manyam for having composed a prabandham called the Rangaghoshanai, evidently in praise of god Ranganātha, and that it was now transferred to the temple for conducting worship to the newly installed image of Dhanvantari and for supplying kudinir-amudu to god Perumal (Ranganatha).
1 Metre : Anushubh. 1 Read Ramapatth. • Read asmarin. • The sentence means that Vā(Bā)gha got (the task of) engraving (tha epigraph).
Such as Tirumangai-Alvär, Kulasēkhara, Topdaradippodi, Tiruppāņālvār and all the others exoept Madhu. rakavi.
• The Köyilolugu (Ananda Press, 1909), pp. 39 and 116.
Pandamangalam is a village near Trichinopoly. It is also mentioned in the Srirangam plates of Dåvariya II (above, Vol. XVII, p. 111).
. This work is not extant now, so far as it can be ascertained. •Kudinir is the Tamil word for kashaya and is used in this sense in Tamil medical works.
