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No. 24 CHIKKERUR INSCRIPTION. OF AHAVAMALLA, SAKA 917
(1 Plate)
B. R. GOPAL, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 10.4.1958)
In December 1957, while touring in the Hirekerur Taluk of the Dharwar District in the present Mysore State in search of inscriptions, I had the opportunity of copying about 21 inscriptions at Chikkerür about six miles from Hirekerür, the headquarters of the Taluk. The earliest inscription1 so far found at Chikkerur is edited here with the kind permission of the Government Epigraphist for India.
The inscription is engraved on a stone set up in front of the temple of Banadavva. Long ago Burgess referred apparently to the same inscription as lying in front of the temple of Banasamkari that is the same as Banadavva. According to him, the date of that record is Saka 975. It will be seen, however, that the date is Saka 917 and not Saka 975.
The stone is dressed only on the surface where the inscription is engraved. There are 17 lines of writing. The engraver seems to have marked out on the stone the space necessary for incising the inscription by a line both at the top and the bottom. But as that space was not enough, he had to continue the writing below the line at the bottom. Above the line at the top, there are the figures of the sun and the moon. The record is written in Kannada characters of about the tenth century A.D. Barring the imprecatory verse at the end which is in Sanskrit, the language of the epigraph is Kannada and it is written in prose.
The engraver has done his job in a very indifferent way and the record contains many mistakes; cf. samvastara (lines 1-2) for samvatsara, Pamlguna (lines 3-4) for Phalguna. The form of m is mostly cursive. The akshara bhai in line 2 has a peculiar form. Similarly noteworthy is the form of n in Uppalana and nadeda (line 9), mijabbe (line 11), °nātana (line 12) and narah (line 15). In punname (line 4) the subscript is n and not n as is usually found in the inscriptions of that period.
The record is dated Saka 917.(expressed partly in words and partly in figures), Jaya, Philguna Puppame (i.e. su. 15), Saturday, Uttara-nakshatra. The date, which is irregular, seems to be the 18th February 995 A.D.
The record opens with the word svasti followed by the date. Then it states that, when Mahamandalesvara Ahavamalladeva proceeded against Uppala (Utpala) in the course of his northern dig-vijaya after having subdued his adversaries in the south and when Bhimayya was governing Banavāse-nādu and Nagarjjuna was the Nalgavunda, Palliga, son of Kondavanigara Jōgayya and Nijabbe, and his wife Arasakka, had the image of the goddess Bhalari installed. They also made a gift of land, obviously in favour of the deity.
The record does not give the name of the ruling king, but refers to a Mahamandalëśvara named Ahavamalla. We know that the region in question was a part of the kingdom of the Western Chalukya king Tailapa II Ahavamalla (973-97 A.D.). But it is difficult to identify Ahavamalla of our record with Taila II since the former is referred to as samadhigatapanchamaha sabda-mahāmandalesvara while the latter's records give him the usual sovereign titles borne by the Western Chalukya kings. Ahavamalla of our record may be identified with Irivabedamga Satyaáraya, the
1 This has been registered as No. 255 of A.R. Ep., 1957-58, App. B. Antiquarian Remains of Bombay Presidency, p. 12.
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