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390
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
A COPPER-PLATE GRANT OF GANADEVA OF KONDAVIDU,
DATED SAKA-SAMVAT 1377.
[NOVEMBER, 1891.
BY E. HULTZSCH, PH.D.; BANGALORE.
The original of this inscription was kindly sent to me for examination by Mr. W. H. Michael, M.C.S., Assistant Collector of the Kistna District. It consists of three copper-plates, the second sides of which are marked on the left margin with the Telugu numbers 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Both the ring with the seal, and the fourth plate together with any other plate that may have followed it, are lost. The alphabet is Telugu and the language Sanskrit, verse (lines 1 to 32) and prose (lines 32 to 58). The plates are not very easily read, as they are somewhat worn and as the text, though on the whole orthographically correct, appears to have been copied from a draught written in current-hand characters.
After two benedictory verses, which are addressed to Ganesa and to the Boar-incarnation of Vishnu, the inscription turns to the praise of king Kapila, surnamed Gajapati (verses 3 and 6) or Kumbhiraja (verse 4), who belonged to the race of the Sun (verse 4). He was a worshipper of Jagannatha (Juggernaut), the famous shrine at Purt in Orissa (verse 6). His capital was Kataka (Cuttack) on the Mahanadi river (verse 7). A descendant of his race was Chandradeva, whose son was Guhidêvapatra (verse 8). The son of the latter was Ganadeva, who assumed the surname Rautaraya (verses 9, 11, 12) or Rahuttaraya (verse 10), i. e. the king of horsemen', on account of a victory over two Turushka princes (verse 9). 2 These may have been two generals of the Bahmani king 'Alâ'u-d-din Ahmad Shah II., who reigned from A. D. 1435 to 1457. Gagadêva's capital was Kondaviḍu (verse 12) in the Narasarâvupêta Taluka of the Kistna District. While residing there, he granted to a number of Brahmanas the village of Chavali (verse 13) in the Repalle Taluka of the Kistna District. The date of the grant was the day of a lunar eclipse in the month of Bhadrapada of 'Saka 1377 (in numerical words), the cyclic year Yuvan. The remainder of the preserved part of the inscription consists of a list of the donees. The name of the cyclic year shews that the 'Saka year is an expired year; and the eclipse should therefore have occurred in August-September, A. D. 1455. For that year, however, von Oppolzer's Canon der Finsternisse shews only one lunar eclipse, on the 1st May; and though Sir A. Cunningham's Inlian Eras shews another, on the 25th October, still that also does not answer to the record. The nearest lunar eclipse on the full-moon of Bhadrapada was that of the 3rd September, A. D. 1457, in 'Saka-Saivat 1379 expired, the Isvara samvatsara.
In the above abstract I have followed the text of the inscription in representing KapilaGajapati as the ancestor of Ganadêva. It is however very probable that Kapila is identical with Kapilêsvara-Gajapati who, according to a chronicle of Kondavidu, 5 ruled from A. D. 1454 to 1461, and with Kapilêndradêva, who, according to Dr. Hunter's Orissa, ruled from A. D. 1452 to 1479. If this supposition is correct, it will be necessary either to translate the compound tad-vamia in verse 8 by the same race as he,' viz. Kapila, or to refer the pronoun tad to the noun bhásvat, the Sun,' which occurs in verse 4. In support of this explanation, which at first sight appears somewhat arbitrary and artificial, it may be adduced that the inscription names Kataka as the capital cf Kapila (verse 7), while Gânadêva resided at Kondavida (verse 12), and that it speaks of Kapila as a living person in the present tense. Especially in verse 3, the present tense cannot be explained as the historical present, as it is accompanied by the adverb adhund, 'now.' I would accordingly consider Kapila, the Gajapati king of Orissa, as a contemporary of Ganadeva of Kondavidu, who appears to have been a tributary of his.
1 According to Brown's Telugu Dictionary, råhuttu or rautu means a horseman.' Rayardhuttaminda occurs among the birudas of Venkata II. of the third dynasty of Vijayanagara; ante, Vol. XIII. p. 131, verse 40. 2 It may perhaps be further concluded from verse 9 that he bore the surname of Srivallabha, and his father the surname of Mahir allabha.
Mr. Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 70. Mr. Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 189.
4 ibid. p. 78.
⚫ ibid. p. 207.
