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No. 37—HEMAVATI PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF KULOTTUNGACHOLA (III),
YEAR 2
(Plate 1)
K. A. NILAKANTA SASTRI AND T. N. SUBRAMANIAM, MADRAS
The text of this inscription has already been published in the South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. VI, No. 553. It is taken up here for detailed study in view of the fresh light it throws on the history of its period. The record is incised on two faces of a pillar found at Hēmāvati in the Madakasira Taluk of the Anantapur District, Andhra State.
The inscription under discussion is in the Tamil language and script with an admixture of Grantha characters for words of Sanskrit origin. It is couched in chaste language and incised fairly correctly. There is no orthographical peculiarity requiring special mention. Palaeographically it may be assigned to the 12th century A.D.
The object of the record is to register the gift of some land to the temple of god Mangěsvaradēva at Peruõjeru in Sirai-nādu, a sub-division of Nigarilibőla-mandalam, by one Sikkaludaiya-settiyar who is described as Vaddha-vyvahāri and detimukhya ; the gift was made with the permission of Mahamandalē svara Uraiyurpuravar-adhi tvara Sri-Mähëfuaran Tribhuvanamalla Mallidēva Chola-mahārāja in the month of Avaņi in the cyclic year Vyaya, which was the second regnal year of Tribhuvana-chakravartin Kulottungachöladēva. It is further stated that the gift was placed in the hands of Isānasiva, the sthānapati of the temple of Tirumangisvaram-udaiyar with the libation of water by the illustrious hand of the king.
It is not clear from the record to which of the reigns of the three Chola kings bearing the name of Kulottunga it 'belongs. The cyclic year Vyaya corresponded with 1046-47, 1106-07, 1166-67 and 1226-27 A.D. In no case did any of these years coincide with the 2nd year of the reign of any of the Chola kings bearing the name Kulõttunga. While the other dates did not fall in the raign of any Kulõttunga at all, the first one coincided with the 37th year of the reign of Kulottunga I. But the palaeography, the difference in the regnal years 2 and 37 and the mention of Tribhuvanamalla Mallidēva Chola-mahārāja make it impossible to assign this record to the time of that monarch.
Tribhuvanamalla Mallidēva Chöļa-mahārāja mentioned in this inscription as ruling over the Sirai-nādu, & sub-division of Nigarilisola-mandalam, with Peruñjeru as his capital figures also in other epigraphs found in that locality. A recordo engraved on a stone set up at the southern entrance of the Oddappa (Siva) temple at the same place, dated in Saka 1084, Vpisha, Pushya,
1 The other two faces of the pillar contain two separate records. The third face boars an undated inscription (SI1, Vol. VI, No. 564) in the Tamil language and script registering the gift of two pon of gold placed in the hands of Ibāna-isyar by Dēvaragandan Tänguvän alias Uttamabola Valavadarayan of Seyyur in Tondai-mandalam (i.e. modern Cheyyür in the Madhorantakam Taluk of the Chingleput District), from the interest of which was to be maintained the worship and a bandi-vilakku in the temple for the morit of his father and mother in the shrine of Svayambhadeva alias Tiruvirāmisvaramudaiya-mahadeva consecrated by him. The fourth face of the pillar contains an incompleto and undated inscription (ibid., No. 555), in Kannada, of the time of the Western Chalukys king Jagaděkamalla containing a portion of the prabast of a person who is described therein as the son of Irutgols Chole-mahārāja.
Nigariliðla-mandalam was the same as Nolambavādi renamed as such by the Chola king Rajarija I after bis conquest of the region and was a "Thirtytwo Thousand country' comprising portions of the Bellary and Anantapur Districts of Andhra and parts of the Kolar and Tumkor Districts of Mysoro. • 811, Vol. IX, No. 268.
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