Current Version: draft, 2024-04-22Z
Editor: Emmanuel Francis.
DHARMA Identifier: INSPallava00061
Summary: A biruda.
Hand Description:
Alternative identifier:
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Corresponding Artefact:
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1 śrī-vāmā(ṁ)kuśaḥ • Hultzsch 1909–1910: page 8, note 1 notes that the anusvāra is doubtful. It does not indeed appear clearly on the facsimile published in Hultzsch 1909–1910: page 8, № 19. In situ, it seems to be above the letter ku. • The visarga is clear in situ. Brocquet 1997: page 586, note 1056 reads śrī-vāmāṅkuśa and notes that this should be analysed as a Vocative form.
The glorious hook of Vāma (Śiva).
or
The glorious one whose hook is splendid/terrible/cruel.
or
The glorious pleasant hook.
Le glorieux croc de Vāma (Śiva).
ou
Le glorieux au croc splendide/terrible/cruel.
ou
Le glorieux aimable croc.
The glorious Vāmāṅkuśa (bearer of handsome elephant-goad).
The inscription -- the only one on the monument bearing it -- consists in what appears to be a biruda, “gloryfying soubriquet”. Although Pallava kings have had hundreds of their birudas engraved on their monuments, this one does not appear among these and is found only on this pillar of the Kōṭikal Maṇḍapa. Note that the biruda Vāma is engraved twice on the Dharmarājaratha at Mahābalipuram. Vāmāṅkuṣa might be the biruda of one among the Pallava biruda-bearers of Mahābalipuram or of an obscure Pallava prince or, as suggested by Srinivasan 1964: page 110, of a chief, subordinated to the Pallavas.
Edited in Hultzsch 1909–1910 (EI 10, no. 1.18), with a facsimile; text and summary in Mahalingam 1988 (IP no. 61); text and translation in Brocquet 1997; re-edited here for DHARMA (ERC n° 809994) by Sylvain Brocquet & Emmanuel Francis (2020), based on autopsy, photographs (2009), and facsimile published in Hultzsch 1909–1910: page 8, № 19.