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No. 38]
NALAJANAMPADU OLD-TELUGU INSCRIPTION
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(II. 8 and 12) which seems to be the form intended, can be compared as regards the formation with pālēru tenant'. It seems to have been formed from palle village' and the plural suffix -ār. Envanṛu (1. 9) may be compared with envor (enva or+, another form of -ar) found in a Kannada inscription1 of c. 700 A. C. but singular instead of plural. Pa[ri]si (11. 11 and 12) is uncertain and might be palisi or palisi or pa for pa, without altering the meaning, as Telugu pariya means fragment, pālu, share and Kannada has pari meaning' divide, palisu, pālisu meaning 'distribute'.
Reward is pala (1. 17) (not phala) as in the earliest Telugu and Kannada-Sanskrit inscriptions. Ekalu (1.19) may be for ēkāļu cf. ēkālamu meaning when. The final u is for the emphatic suffix and might be for u or um. The form of la (11. 18 and 21) is found in later inscriptions and also in early Kannada.
What Caldwell terms euphonic permutation is rare, the only clear example being vuṭṭu (1. 10) for puṭṭu in munṛu vuṭṭu. In the other inscriptions it is more frequent. So pandumbu, meaning 'ten tūmus, sēnu for chēnu, meaning 'field', sesiri for chesiri; again gānu for kanu meaning 'see, vē-gulluvu, meaning 1000 families' (vē+kuļļuvu), vē-seruvuļu meaning 1000 tanks' (ve+cheruvulu) in the Mālēpāḍu inscription. In the Addanki verse inscription the change is common but in the short prose portion rare, only enubadi vudlu, meaning 80 puṭṭas 'being found (puṭṭalu replaced by vuḍlu).
The grammar of the present inscription is closer to Tamil and Kannada than is modern Telugu. The plural termination kal or gal is already worn down to la via gala which actually occurs in the Bezwada inscription of Yuddhamalla (c. 880 to 926), in brōlagala meaning cities" (b is the form assumed by p after m). The ending nru for nominative masculine singular has been mentioned above. The neuter form mbu later mu already appears but seems to be confined to words considered to be of Sanskrit origin. Ichche (1. 13) meaning he gave' corresponds to ichchenu in modern Telugu and ichchen in literary Telugu for M. F. N. sing. and N. pl. Possibly the twin consonant is a sign of the past tense. The suffix aku (1. 13) corresponds with modern Telugu gā; Tamil āka, āki, Kannada āga are similar in origin. Agu (11. 17 and 22)) is a future or optative, cf. Kannaḍa akum and perhaps Tamil aka in the Daļavānur inscription.10 The uninflected form of the nominative used as a genitive (palleyari, 1. 8) is found in certain nouns in modern Telugu, but the genitive termination na (asvamedhambuna, 1. 16) is, in modern Telugu, only found in words such as ayana meaning 'his' and in relative participles. The former survives in modern Tamil and Kannada, and the latter only in Tamil.
From the linguistic point of view an early attribution is therefore perfectly feasible. From the epigraphic point of view it has been stated above that the characters are those of the seventh and eighth centuries. They may be somewhat later, for the style of the Telugu alphabet was changed in the course of the reign of the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya III (circa 844 to 888 A. C.); his later inscriptions were engraved in a new more regular style, which is found later in the Bezwada inscription. The latest date of this inscription is, therefore, c. 850.
Historically, the date can be pushed back still further. It has been argued above that Parameśvara must be a proper name, but there still exists the bare possibility that during a pro
1 Ind. Ant., Vol. X, p. 103.
Te. Addanki and Bezwada inscriptions; Ka. Mys. Arch. Rep. 1936, p. 126: Ep. Carn., Vel. II. No. 85 (Sans. krit portion).
Brown, Telugu English Dictionary, under eppudu.
See, for example, Ind. Ant., Vol. X, p. 164.
Nellore Inscriptions, p. 607, Pețlāru.
Above, Vol. XI, p. 346. [The expression ve-gulluvu has been taken to mean a thousand temples.-N. L. R.]
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Ibid., Vol. XV, p. 150 [gala or kala here means only living' or existing '.-N. L. R.]
See Campbell, Teloogoo Grammar, 33.
Badami Inseription, o 590, Ind. Ant., Vol. X, p. 60.
10 Above, Vol. XII, p. 225.
