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JULY, 1908.)
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE NELLORE DISTRICT.
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Paucity of early Inscriptions in Nellore. As regards the history of the district, what strikes one on looking through the 1,400 pages of the volume of Nellore inscriptions is the paucity of materials for the earlier periods. This characteristic the distriot shares with the rest of the Teluga country on the east coast. It is true the other coast districts of the Teluga country have not been exhaustively explored. But so far as they have been examined, the same characteristio feature of their antiquities is noticeable. No doubt, the history of the country has been made out largely from copperplate grants. The Eastern Chalukya dynasty which held sway -- Bocording to an inscription of the 11th century from the river Mannera to Mahendragirio --over the districts of Ganjam, Vizagapatam, Godavari, Kistna, Guntur, and the northern portion of Nellore, is represented mostly by copper-plate grante. Only two exceptions to this general rule occur in the Nellore volume. At Badamanaråyalapâda in the Podili Division (P.1) is a carious inscription which, like the Amaravati pillar11, has to be read from the bottom upwards. It is dated in the 12th year of Visbnuvardhana-Maharaja. Vishņuvardhana was a title borne by no less than ton of the Eastern Chalukya kings. Bat as the alphabet of the inscription is archaic, there is no doubt that it has to be assigned to one of the earlier kings bearing this surname. The other early Chalukya stone inscription belongs to the time of Vikramaditya-Mahârâja (D. 2) of the Chalukya family, who, if he was an Eastern Chalukya at all, must be Vikramaditya II. (11 months A. D. 925 to 926 ).12 It is a significant fact worthy of record that Teluga literature cannot be traced beyond the period represented by the earliest stone inscriptions of the Telugu country. Names of poets belonging to earlier periods have, no doubt, come down to as. Bat none of their works has survived.13 Though these facts do not admit of satisfactory explanation at present, they deserve to be registered for future investigation.
(To be continued.) 10 Ep. Ind., Vol. VI. p. 335. 1 South-Ini. Inacr., Vol. I, p. 25. 11 Ante, Vol. XX, p. 209.
13 In his Lives of the Telugu Poets (p. 9) Bao Bahadur K. Viresalingam Pantola Garu mentions the fact and says it is reported to be due to an accident. He says that the whole country was once burnt down by foreign invadere, when all litorary mongmente disappeared. This seems to be surmise based on the name given to the country, viz. Véngt. Vêngt-desamu or Végi-débama, which is apparantly derived from the root vágufa. But the name existed already in the 4th century A. D., as it is myntioned in the Allahabad pillar insoription of Samudragapta, and the kingdom of Véngt was established in the 7th centary, as will be pointed out below. As most of the lithio records of this part of the country are not older than the 11th century and as the earliest known literary work is the Telugu translation of the Mahabharata made by Nannayabhatts in the same century (ante. Vol. XXVII, p. 245, fetaoto 1), this explaastion is not toasble. At any rate, the absence of and robitetural monuments oannot be accounted for in this way. Profesor Kielhorn has noticed the absence of stope insoriptions in the one of three families, vis, the GAhadavala kings of Kansaj, the Maitrakas of Valabhl, and the Eastern Chalukyas of Vogt (Bp. Ind., Vol. VIII, p. 149, footnote 8). Ho is of opinion that there must have existadoonsiderable number of stone insoriptions of one of these three families and remarks: "The stones on which these insoriptions were engraved have been probably used for building purposes or lie baried in the ground." The process by whioh the stones of deserted temples disappear gradually may be soon even now in
illace For instance, at Eyil, in the South Arcot distriot, the Janus asked the Collector for permission to 88 the stones of the Bira temple for repairing their ow. If the permission sought for had been granted, no trace of the Sira temple would have been loft. The stones of the enclosure wall in the temple at Gangaikonda-Oholapuram in the Triohinopoly district were utilised by the Pablio Works Department in 1836 in building the dam Across the river Coloroon, kaowa as the Lower Aniont (Trichinopoly Manual, p. 313'). The rampart of the ruined fort at Kanpapar (near Triohinopoly ) is said to have been palled down by some "Nawab" and the stones used in building or repairing the Triobinopoly fort. It is also reported that the stones of onveral manda pas and of the onolosure of the tank in front of the temple (at Kapnagar) wore utilized for building the bridges over the Coloroon and the Kavert rivers. In earlier times, religions animosity played no small part in the destruction of ancient monumenta and their eventual disappearance. If the reigning king happened to be opposed to a particular orood, the monuments belonging to it stood very little chance of being proteoted against vandalism. On the other hand, wo hare authentio instances of anolont kings and chiefs utilizing tho materials of a monument belonging to an opposite orood in raising one to their own religion. For instance, the Tamil Periyapuranam informs us that . Pallava king, who Wu originally Jains, was sabsequently converted to the Baiva ored through the efforts of the Baiva saint Tirankakkaralar. One of the first acts of the convert was to demolish tho Jaioa buildings at Paliparam (near Tiruvadi in tbe South Aroot distriot) and build a Baiva temple out of the materials. Baddhism and Jainism word, common opponents of the Brahmsniol oraed, and it is easy to imagine how the Buddhist and Jalos monuments of the Telugu country have disappeared. The disappearance of the monuments belonging to the orthodox Hindu creed and of the stone incriptions of the Pallaras and Eastern Chalukyasemains to be satisfactorily explained.
