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64
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
(VOL. XXXIV
one inch in height though their size on the first and second sides is slightly bigger than that on the third and fourth. There are 28 lines of writing on the first side, 27 on the second, and 33 each on the third and the fourth, the last line showing only the upper parts of the letters in most cases. On the first side, a line contains between 9 (lines 1, 6) and 13 (line 14) aksharas, on the second between 9 (line 2) and 14 (lines 22-23), on the third between 12 (lines 12, 15) and 18 (line 1), and on the fourth hot weep 11 (line 3) and 16 (line 6).
The characters of the inscription are Southern Nāgari of about the 12th century A.D. and closely resemble those of the Gayā inscription referred to above. The language of the inscription is Sanskrit and the composition is a mixture of prose and verse. There is a versified introduction covering the first and second faces of the pillar together with a small space at the beginning of the third and this is followed by a number of transactions delineated in prose on the third and fourth sides. Little is noteworthy in the orthography of the record excepting the facts that the dynastic name Kakatiya has been spelt as Kākatiyya,' and that the use of anusvāra for class nasal is common while that of the latter is rare. Consonants following have been rarely reduplicated while there is one case of p being reduplicated before r in line 12 on the third side,
The inscription under study is a document of the prasasti type. Its object is to record several pious acts of more than a single person, although one of these persons was the hero of the prasasti and was apparently responsible for setting up the pillar. The inscription refers itself to the reign of the Kakatiya king Ganapati and the first of the transactions recorded in it is stated to have taken place ia 1199 A. D. which falls in the first regnal year of the said monarch The same transaction is associated with the rule of a chief named Allumprðlarāja who was Gaņa pati's governor ruling over Chernuri-dēsa, i.e., roughly speaking, the modern Chinnur Taluk in the Adilabad District of Andhra Pradesh. Since a different transaction recorded in our epigraph is similarly 1980ciated with the rule of the dauhitra (daughter's son) of the said Allumpróla rāja likewise ruling over the same Chernūri-dēsa as the viceroy of Kakatiya Ganapati, there is little doubt that the inscription under study was composed and engraved a few years later than Ganapati's first regnal year. In the rule of the Chernūri-desa, the chief Allumprolarāja seems to have been succeeded by his daughter's son. This is also suggested by the fact that Mallikarjuna, who is represented as dead in the introductory part of the record, is stated to have accepted, with Ganapati's consent, a gift of land from the successor of Allumprõlarāja apparently sometime after 1199 A.D. when the latter was ruling. The inscription also refers to an earlier transaction of the time of Rudradēva or Pratäparudra I (c. 1163-95 A.D.).
The contents of the writing on the different faces of the pillar are analysed below.
First Side The inscription begins with an adoration in prose to Mantrakāța-Göpijanavallabha, i.e. the god Gopljanavallabha (literally, the lover of the milk-maide', i.e. Krishna) worshipped in a temple situated at Mantrakuța. The same deity is mentioned in the Gayā inscription and we have seen elsewhere that Mantrakūta was another name of the locality otherwise called Manthani, Mantens or Mantenna, where the inscription under study has been discovered. As will be seen below, our record gives the name both as Mantrakūta and Manthenna, the latter in the geographical name Manthenna-käluva (literally, the Manthenna canal').
Tho unnooossary reduplication of y is generally notioed in certain medieval records of the Telugu-speaking area, o.g., the Raghudovapuram plater of 1456 A.D. (of. above, Vol. XXXIII, p. 3)
Ibid., p. 104,
