Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 15

JANUARY, 1933]
DYNASTIC CONTINUITY IN VIJAYANAGARA HISTORY
temple at Tiruvadi, South Arcot district. I confess that it is not possible to explain why Tirumalai Dêvu's inscription of 1453 A.D. should have been found in the South Arcot district when, as related above, most of his records refer us to the Tanjore district. We can only suppose that all these districts together formed the jurisdiction of one provincial ruler in those days, or that Tirumalai Deva was in the South Arcot district in 1453 A.D. on some state business.
This last assumption would enable us to understand the identification of Tirumalai Deva with Gopa-Timma and Timma A rocord dated Saka 1385 expired, Subhanu (1463 A.D.), found in the Ranganatha temple at Srirangam, Trichinopoly, calls Tirumalai Dêva by the name of Gôpa-Timma. Dr. Hultzsch wrote the following on this point : “An inscription of Tirumalaidēva dated in 1463 A.D. .... establishes tho correctness of my identification of this king with Timma of Tuļuva, the founder of the second dynasty of Vijayanagara (South Indian Inscriptions, vol. II, p. 117), as, in the Sanskrit verses at the end of the inscription, the king is called Gôpa-Timma."67
While Dr. Hultzsch has thus enabled us to identify the Timma of Vijayanagara history, I am afraid he has not succeeded in explaining one knotty point which we come across in numerous inscriptions as well as in literature, and which till now has remained unexplained. Dr. Hultzsch wrote the following while oditing a record of Krishna Deva Raya :-"The historical part begins with the verse 5 : In his (viz., Turvasu's) race shone king Timma, who was famous among the princes of Tuļuva, just as Krishna shone in the race of Yadu.' From this verse we learn, first, that the founder of the second Vijayanagara dynasty was a native of Tuluva or Northern Malayalam, the country of the northern Tuļuvas. Secondly, he must have been a usurper, as he claims only a mythological relationship to the princes of the first dynasty of Vijayanagara. For, while the kings of this dynasty used to derive their origin from Yadu (see South Indian Inscriptions, I, pp. 156, 160), Timma selected, in opposition to his predecessors on the throne, Yadu's younger brother Turvasu as the mythical progenitor of his race."68
From the Telugu works Varáhapuranam and Jaimini Bharatam, as remarked above, we gather that Saļuva Nsisimha claimed descent from Yadu. We know also that the rulers who belonged to the Sangama line likewise traced their origin to Yadu. Obviously Sâļuva Nrisimha's claims for asserting that the progenitor of the branch to which he belonged was Yadu were not ill-founded, especially when we remember that he could, as Nuniz puts it, "in some manner ” point his relationship to the Sangama family through Saļuva Tippa and his own unidentified wife of the same house. But we have to explain why Turvasu is mentioned in the inscriptions of Krishna Deva Râya and his successors as the progenitor of the so-called Tuluva line. It was because he, and therefore his great-grandfather Timma or Tirumala or Gopa-Timma, claimed descent from the youngest son of Gauta; while Saļuva Nộisimha and his son Sâļuva Narasinga traced their lineage to the eldest son of Gauta. Eliminating the two figures of Saļuva and Boppa, who do not seem to have been conspicuous, we may say that it was merely to distinguish their younger (in reality the youngest) branch from the elder (in reality the eldest) that Krishna Deva Raya's pedigree is traced to Turvasu in opposition to Yadu, the first mythological figure in the main line to which Saļuva Nộisimha belonged.
47 Ep. Rep. for 1892, p. 10. This Tirumalai Dôva is not to be confounded with Tirumalai Dova of Saka 1483 (1631-2 A.D.) who figures in the reign of Achyuta RÂya. 253 of 1906; p. Rep. for 1907, p. 85. He was the son of Salakaiyya Deva Mahârâja. 174 of 1906.
68 Ep. Im., , p. 362.