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No. 25.]
CHARALA PLATES OF VIRARAJENDRADEVA: SAKA 991.
243
position of the latter two to the tiger on Chōla seals is meant to indicate the political supremacy of the Chōla over the Pandya and Chera kings. The other objects such as the pair of chauris, the two lamps on either side, etc., belong to the group of eight objects called the ashlamangalam, which are associated with auspicious ceremonials. It may be noted that the full set of ashlamangalam objects are represented on the seal of the Tiruvalangaḍu plates where, in addition to these, a small figure of the Chalukyan crest, the boar, is also introduced, indicative perhaps of the Chōla supremacy over the Chalukya. Though Virarajendra claims to have defeated the Chalukya king several times, it is noticed that the Chalukyan varaha-läñchhana has not been figured on the Charala seal.
There are a few orthographical peculiarities noticeable in the record under review. The lengths of medial i in Grantha letters are indicated by a pronounced loop (1. 2). The ra-sign whon it is the second member in conjunct consonants is shaped like the ri-symbol in some cases (11. 2, 47, etc.). La and la are often interchanged (1. 20) and sa is wrongly used for cha in some cases (11. 167, 176). The rules of sandhi are almost always observed, correctly in some cases and incorrectly in others. In the latter instances, the first consonant is retained instead of being changed into the third letter of the same varga. The use of the anusvara in place of the appropriate nasals and the doubling of consonants after a repha are frequent. Such features are common to copper-plate inscriptions of this period. The errors have been corrected either in the body of the text or in relevant footnotes. At the ends of some of the verses in the Sanskrit portion, the symbol: followed by three vertical strokes is used as a punctuation mark, and should not be mistaken for the visarga, whereas in some other cases it is meant as such. The Tamil text, for the drafting of which the officer Madhurantaka-Brahmadhiraja was responsible, is not free from errors of composition and transcription.
The Sanskrit portion of 81 verses in different metres which comprises nearly three-fourths of the document, is identical, verse for verse, with that in the long stone record of the king dated in the same 7th year, discovered at Kanyakumari in the Travancore State and published in a scholarly manner by Mr. K. V. Subrahmanya Ayyar in the Travancore Archaeological Series3 and by the late T. A. Gopinatha Rao in a previous volume of this Journal. As the Kanyakumari record is, however, damaged in several places, the present inscription is of great help in filling up the lacune and settling some doubtful readings in the former and in thus arriving at a complete text of this particular version of the Sanskrit prasasti of the Chōla dynasty. In several instances, the readings furnished by this inscription are better than those made out from the Kanyakumari epigraph. These and other minor differences between these two copies have been noticed in footnotes under the text.
The record may, for the sake of convenience, be divided into four sections--the mythological, the historical, the donatory and the signatory.
Section I (Lines 1-104).
In this section of 52 Sanskrit verses, the mythological origin of the Chōla dynasty is given in great elaboration from Brahma through Kasyapa, Manu and other members of the Solar race. An eponymous Chōla, a Rajakēsarī and a Parakesari are then introduced, and the genealogy is
The ashlamangalam objects are (1) a mirror, (2) a pūrṇa-kumbha, (3) a flag, (4) a fly-whisk, (5) an elephant-goad, (6) a drum, (7) a pair of lamps and (8) a pair of fish. There are different lists of these objects, in which a svastiki and a ankha also occur.
The king claims to have captured the anūkarakkoḍi (i.e.) the varaha-banner of the Chalukyas, along with other royal paraphernalia. (S. I. I., Vol. III, p. 66).
Vol. III, p. 87. This learned scholar has, in many cases, succeeded in arriving at the correct readings, despite the damaged condition of the record in several places.
Ante., Vol. XVIII, pp. 21 ff.
