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204
EPIGRAPHIA INDIOA
(VOL. XXVII
TRANSLATION Hail! Paramēsvara Pallavāditya, a devoted worshipper of Mahesvara, meditating on the feet of the Supreme Master, the Lord Arhat. He who is named badirāju, son of the village chief in the family of the Badirajulu, divided off a field of three puttis of millet by the royal measure and gave it as the village-chief's hereditary land. He who preserves this (assignment) will have the reward of performing the horse sacrifice often. He who destroys it will ever have the sin of destroying the Sriparvvata. Written by Pallavācharya, son of Vāchcho.. lāļa.
The inscription is ordinarily supposed to have been engraved in the name of a small Pallava chief Badiraju and the expression Paramēšvara is held to be an epithet. Paramēsvara was a title assumed by Pulakēsin II after his repulse of Harsha and was used by the Western and Eastern Chalukyas after him. The Răshtrakūtas used it, but not regularly. The Bānas claim descent from the door-keeper of Paramēsvara and do not use the title for themselves. The Gangas do not use the title. And the. Chõlas at a later period avoid it. It is therefore unlikely that a small chief of Pallava descent would use it, particularly as the earlier Pallavas used the word only as a personal name and the later Pallava kings were recognised as paramount long enough to make it unlikely that any members of the clan would assume it as a title. Nandivarman Pallavamalla in the Käsākudi plates' (c. 730 A. C.) calls himself paramēšvara and in line 136 the word is used in parametvara-mahākoshţakärinä by the king's high-treasurer. If paraméívara is not a biruda, it must be a name. There is only one name that deserves consideration --that of the Pallava king Paramēsvara I (660 to 680 A. C.). There are the following definite reasons for making this attribution.
(1) The characters belong to the seventh and eighth centuries. They are later than the sixth century as k and r are no longer open. They are not later than the ninth century as they possess an earlier form of l.
(2) The inflection -ndu (modern Telugu -du and -ndu) in the Addanki inscription is represented here as-nou. The modern Telugu allu' a millet' is represented, not as ādlu as in the Addanki "record, but as ārlu. These forms are closer to the Tamil type, but are not Tamil. The freer use ofr is a sign of age.
(3) Paramēsvara I frequently calls himself in Tamil inscriptions Ichchuvaraparuma and Paramēchchu[valra and in Sanskrit Paramēsvaravarma with only a simple biruda, if any. Pallavdditya is one of the birudas of Narasimha II, Paramēśvara's son and Mahēsvara is & contemporary name of Siva, although I cannot find the term paramamāhēsvara until the ninth century in an Eastern Chalukyan grant. Paramēšvara, unlike many other kings, often does not use iri before his name.
(4) The vocabulary and structure of sentences are not less archaic than those of the Addanki inscription.
The language of the inscription is of special interest. It has been previously noticed,' that there are several unusual words and forms. Mūnru (1. 10) three may be compared with Tamil mantu and is certainly the oldest form known of the numeral substantive three. Palloyari
18. 1. I., Vol. II, p. 360, 1. 71. * Above. Vol. VII, p. 24; Ep. Carn., Vol. X, Mb. 211; 8.1. 1., Vol. VIII, No. 331 .8.1. I.. Vol. I, p. 148. • Ibid., p. 16.
Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 22. The following rulor of South India wbo flourished between 4th and 7th centuries A. D. had the biruda of paramama Móvara: (1) the Sālaskäyana king Vijaya-Devavarman (above, Vol. IX, p. 68). (2) the Kakaya chief Sivanandavarman (Ep. Carn., Vol. XI, p. 142) and (3) the Vishnukundin king Vikramandravarman (above, Vol. IV, p. 196).-N. L. R.]
Ibid., Vol. I, p. 31. Boo, for example, K. Ramakrishnayya : Studies in Dravidian Philology.
