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70 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXX year with 699-700 A.C. At this time a Vāṇaraja was governing the Vanganār vishaya. The object of the epigraph is to record a gift of eighty units of cultivable land as pannāsa in the village Peņukaparuti by Pūllamukki Bēļakanamayāru. It was made with due ceremony after the announcement of the royal order to the effect in the presence of Chappilirāja and the residents of two villages. The donee who received the gift was Kumāraśarman of the Bhāradvāja gotra.
The primary interest of the epigraph lies in the fact that it is one of the few records belonging to the early part of Vijayaditya's reign. Furthermore, it is the earliest dated inscription of the king so far discovered in the Telugu country. Besides, it also affords a glimpse into the political condition of the Andhra dēša under the Chalukyas of Bādāmi and their feudatories of the Bāņa extraction. From the provenance of the inscriptions discovered in parts of the Districts of Cuddapah, Kurnool and Anantapur and further as far as Nellore, it is gathered that the authority of these Chālukya rulers extended over a large portion of the Andhra country. The major part of this territorial acquisition appears to have been effected by Pulakēsin II in the course of his triumphant expeditions in the eastern and the southern quarters. Highly interesting in this context is the information furnished by an inscription from Peddavadugūru' in the Gooty taluk of the Anantapur District, which has been assigned to the time of Pulakësin II. The epigraph seems to indicate that the chiefs of the Bäna family were ruling in this area in & semi-independent position before the advent of the Chalukya conqueror who vanquished them and reduced them to subordination. Ever since that time the Bāņas seem to have accepted the suzerainty of the Chalukyas and served them as their loyal vassals.
The name of the Bāņa chief who is said to be administering the area of the Vanganūr vishaya, apparently as a subordinate of Vijayāditya, is not specified in our record. From an inscription at Kondupallis in the Gooty taluk of the Anantapur District, dated the 23rd year of Vijayaditya, we know that Vikramaditya Bali Indra Bānaraja was governing the Turumara vishaya. It is probable that Vänarāja or Bānarāja of our epigraph is identical with the Bāņa chief of the Kondupalli inscription. But considering the diversity of regions under the authority of these chiefs and also the interval of nearly 20 years between the dates of these records, the possibility that the two might be different, though members of the same family, is not ruled out. Chappilirije, in whose presence the gift was made, appears to have been a local authority of some impor tance. The record was incised by Kanchagala.
As for the place-names, the Vanganur vishaya may be identified with the region roundabout the present-day village Vanganūru in the Tadpatri taluk.. The village Peņukaparuti or Penukaparu containing the gift land might have been situated near the present-day Kotturu. The same village appears to have been referred to as Penukalapadu in a late inscription of the place, dated in 1614 A.C.? It seems to have been wiped out of existence subsequently.
1 Madras Epigraphical Reports, 1904, para. 16; 1906, para. 40; 1921, paras. 1-2; 1934, para. 2.
Compare Journal of Indian History, Vol. XXIX (1951), pp. 161-62. * SII, Vol. IX, pt. I, No. 46.
Compare Journal of Indian History (op. cit), p. 162. We may incidentally note that a family of chiefs who called themselves 'the Banas of Khandavamardals'has been discovered by the author during his explorations in the Hyderabad State. They were ruling as the feudatories of the Chilukyas of Kalyana in the 11th and 12th centuries in the vicinity of Malkhed in the Gulbarga District; see Journal of Oriental Research, Vol. XXI. n. 98 ff. It is of interest also to note that a princess of the Hebbana or Perbida family, by Dame Dévalabbe, figures wa donor in an inscription at Lakkundi, Gadag taluk, Dharwar Distriot; B. K. Coll., No. 47 of 1926-27.
811., Vol. X, No. 28. . Vadganūru has yielded two inscriptions of later times, one of the Vijayanagara king Vijaya-Bukkamahariya il mother of Saka 1429, Prabhava (=1607 A.C.): ARIE for 1950-01, Appendix B, Nos. 202 and 201 respectively.
Ibid., for 1947-48, Appendix B, No. 13. • It is worthy of note that all the antiquities of the place were found near modern Kottäru only.
