________________
170
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JUNE, 1879.
in the first year of our advancing victorious does not occur in the grant itself, nor is it once reign.
mentioned by Sir W. Elliot, Dr. Barnell, or Mr. Tamil endorsement.
Fleet, in their descriptions of it. It is also to In the twenty-sixth year of the reign of the be observed, that Nandi Varm A, the grantor, worshipful Koppara Kesari Varma, is described in it as belonging to the gotra of the village councillors of the two villages of salan k & yana: whereas the kings of the Ikanmarai-mangalam, which is Kanchi-vayil, Palla vas, in the other inscriptions, are deand Udayachandra-mangalam having assembled scribed as of the gotra of Bhârad vaja There together, this agreement was unanimously is another feature in this grant which so far dismade-We have become one village and will go tinguishes it from the other Pallava grants, live and prosper.
though it resembles them in ita general com. It is to Sir Walter Elliot, as is now well position ;-it gives the descent of the grantor known, that we owe the rescue of the kings of only from his father, and simply describes the the Pallaves from the oblivion into which father as a Maharaja : whereas the other grants they had fallen, and the consequent possibility trace the pedigree of the donor up to his greatof the recovery of some knowledge of an im- grandfather, and describe the Pallav a family portant portion of the early history of the from which he was descended. This greater Da khan. And it is gradually becoming in- simplicity of form may be nothing more than creasingly evident that these kings were at an indication of its earlier age : and in that the head of an extensive and highly prosperous case the more primitive general appearance of state, or of a confederation of kingdoms, from at the inscription, and the greater rudeness of the least the commencement of the Christian era character, point in the same direction. Meandownwards.
while the Nandi Varm â of this grant was Sir Walter's invaluable collection of ancient the son of Chanda Varma, and is therefore inscriptions, now being published by Mr. Fleet a different person from the Nandi Varma in this Journal, includes four grants of this of the present grant, who was the son of dynasty (808 Dr. Eggeling's letter in vol. iii. Skanda Varma; unless it should hereafter of this Journal, p. 152): and there is appa-l prove that Chanda Varma and this Skanrently a fifth, namely, the "rude and indistinct" da Varma are the same person. For the second grant of Nandi Varmâ referred to by present also, the unpublished second inscription Mr. Fleet in Indian Antiquary vol. V. p. 175, of Nandi Varma, Professor Eggeling's 5th, which is probably the "almost entirely illegible" must be left at its side. second grant in the Vengi character which Dr. The 3rd Pallava inscription of the Elliot Burnell had already mentioned in his South collection in Professor Eggeling's list contains Indian Palæography, p. 14.
the names of Devendra Varman and his One of these documents, Professor Eggeling's father Rajendra Varman, names not elsefourth, was published with a fac-simile and notes, where appearing as yet amongst the kings of as far back as 1840, by Sir Walter Elliot in the the Palla vas. This grant has not yet been Madras Journal of Literature and Science, vol. XI. published. p. 302: but at that time it had been but imper- Besides these, there remain the 1st and 2nd fectly deciphered. It was subsequently re- grants of Dr. Eggeling's list; the 1st of which published in 1874, with a fac-simile of a printed has been published by Mr. Fleet as No. XII. of impression of the plates, by Dr. Burnell (see pp. his Series in Indian Antiquary vol. V. p. 50, 14, 86, and plates xx. xxi. S. I. Palæog.) : and and the 2nd as No. XV. in vol. V. p. 154. it also forms No. xviii. of Mr. Fleet's Series of With these the present grant of Nandi Inscriptions in vol. V. p. 175 of this Journal. Varma must now be associated : for, although
This grant has always been regarded as one his name does not appear in the Elliot grants, of the Palla v& dynasty, and there are circum- the general character of this grant is precisely stances which warrant this classification. Still similar to them, and the language also is almost it may be well to note that the name " Pallava" identically the same; so closely identical are
The fac-simile is in my copy of the Mad. Jour.
!
Pp. 16 and 186, and plate xxiv. of the second edition.
