Māṁgallu grant of Dānārṇava

Metadata

Current Version:  draft, 2025-01-14Z

Editor:   Dániel Balogh.

DHARMA Identifier: INSVengiCalukya00039

Hand Description:

Halantas. T looks like a full-sized ta without a headmark (l21, l47); some specimens also have a short vertical tail, e.g. l21 balāT. N looks like a simplified and slightly reduced na without a headmark, with the top extended in a short tail slanting to the right (l10, l11, l17, l20 etc). M seems to be a circle without a tail, as in l22 bhuvaM. VR apparently sees no instances of final M in this text, but I am quite certain some final anusvāras in his edition are actually M.

Original punctuation marks are plain straight verticals, a character body in height.

Other palaeographic observations. Anusvāra is a dot after the character to which it belongs, placed at midline height or lower. Dependent o occurs both in the single-stroke cursive form and as two separate strokes. The cursive form (e.g. l2 gotrā°) has low humps identical on both sides, and a short tail descending barely below headline (but some instances, e.g. l16 kollabi°, have a longer tail, while others have none, ending well above headline, e.g. l18 tanayo). Dependent au (e.g. l3 kauśiki) does not differ conspicuously from cursive o and is read on the basis of context, without flagging as an erroneous o. The character dha is mostly written to look like va (e.g. (l1)). I, like VR, treat these as instances of dha, unclear due to unusual formation. Although most look like perfect specimens of va, not imperfect specimens of dha, there is also an instance of tha that looks like va with a dot in it (l6), while a normal-shaped tha occurs in l62. Normal-shaped dha also occurs (l25 vacadharasya, l33 °dhyakṣam). Because of this variation, I accept the va-like outline as an alternative form used by the scribe in question. There may well be a hand change starting with the word samasta in line 39 (near the end of 3v) and ending abruptly with vatsa at the end of line 41 (the second line on 4r), after which the text continues with a major omission at the beginning of line 42 (see apparatus). Within this stretch, characters are bolder and more evenly written, with a more cursive ductus and a slant to the right. The tail of dependent ā and (cursive) dependent o is extended down to or beyond the baseline, the tail of ha is extended ornamentally backward, and the initial loop of ya is almost the size of a regular character body (compare eṟiya in l41 against guṇḍiya in l37 and betiya in l42). The hand from l42 onward may be a third one, or it may be the first one with some changes. (Can it be that the text was inscribed by an apprentice up to l39? He may have made so many blunders in the last lines of 3v that the master took over for two lines, showed him how this is done, then gave the work back to the apprentice who afterward shaped some of his characters differently, but in his concentration on shaping them well, omitted a number of characters at the point of takeover?)

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Additional Metadata

No metadata were provided in the table for this inscription

Edition

Seal

¹śrī-tribhuvanāṁkuśa

Plates

svasti[.] śr¿i?⟨ī⟩matāṁ sakala-bh¿ū?⟨u⟩vana-saṁstūyamāna-m¿a?⟨ā⟩navya-sagotrāṇā⟨ṁ⟩ ¡hāriti! ³-putrāṇāṁ kauśik¿i?⟨ī⟩-vara-pras¿a?⟨ā⟩da-labdha-rājyānām mātr̥-gaṇa-paripālitānāṁ sv¿a?⟨ā⟩mi-
⁴-mahāse◯na-pādānu(dh)y¿a?⟨ā⟩tānāṁ bhagavan-nārāyaṇa-prasāda-sam(ā)sādi-
⁵ta-vara-varā◯ha-lāṁ¿c?⟨ch⟩anekṣaṇa-kṣaṇa-vaśīkr̥tārāti-maṇḍalānām aśvame(dh)ā-
⁶vabhr̥(th)a-snāna-pavitr¿i?⟨ī⟩kr̥ta-vapuṣāṁ cālukyānāṁ kulam alaṁkari¿ga?⟨ṣno⟩s {saṁtyāśraya-va}-
⁷{llabhe(ndra)sya pratā kubja-viṣṇaṣ(ṇu)vi} satyaśrāya-va⟨⟨lla⟩⟩bhendrasya bhrātā kubja-viṣṇuva⟨r⟩ddha-
^{⎘ plate 2r 8}no{|} [’]ṣṭādaśa varṣāṇi veṁgī-deśam ap¿a?⟨ā⟩layaT| tat-putro jayasiṁha-vallabhas traya-
⁹striṁśataṁ| tad-anujendrarājas sapta dināni| tan-nandano viṣṇuvarddhano nava saṁv(v?)a-
¹⁰tsarā(N)| tat-tokam maṁgi-yuvarājaḥ paṁcaviṁśa⟦(r)⟧⟨⟨t⟩⟩i¿ma?⟨M⟩| tad-auraso jayasiṁhas trayodaśa⟨|⟩
¹¹ tad-⟨d⟩vaim¿a?⟨ā⟩tu◯rānujaḥ kok⟨k⟩iliḥ ṣaṇ māsāN| tasya jy¿a?⟨e⟩ṣṭho bhrātā viṣṇuva⟨r⟩ddha-
¹²{ddha}nas tam u◯¿py?⟨cc⟩āṭya saptatriṁśad va⟨r⟩ṣāṇi| tad-¿ā?⟨a⟩patyaṁ vijayāditya-bhaṭṭ¿a?⟨ā⟩rako [’]ṣṭā-
¹³daśa| tad-ātmajo viṣṇuvarddhanaḥ ṣaṭtriṁśataṁ| tat-tanujo narendra-vijayāditya⟨ḥ⟩
¹⁴Aṣṭacatvāriṁśataṁ| tat-putra¿ṁ?⟨ḥ⟩ kali-viṣṇuvarddha(no) [’]dhyarddha-(varṣaṁ| ta)d-ātmajo gu-
^{⎘ plate 2v 15}ṇakkenalla-vijayādityaś catuścatvāriṁśataṁ| tad-anuja-v¿o?⟨i⟩kramāditya-sū-
¹⁶nuś cālukya-bhīmas triṁśataṁ| tat-putraḥ kollabigaṇḍa-vijayādityaḥ ṣa-
¹⁷ṇ māsāN| tat-s¿u?⟨ū⟩nur ammarājas sapta varṣāni| tat-suto ¿bhe?⟨rbha⟩ka-vijayādityaḥ pa-
¹⁸kṣaṁ⟨|⟩ {n}tatas tā◯ḻapa-rājo māsaṁ| taṁ jitvā cālukya-bhīma-tanayo-
¹⁹vikramā◯dityas saṁvatsaraṁ|

sa samasta-bhuvanāśra⟨⟨ya-śrī⟩⟩-vijayā-
^{⎘ plate 3v 31}ditya-mahārājā(dh)irāja-param(e)śvara-parama-bhaṭṭ(ā)rakaḥ parama-brahmaṇyo nāta-
³²vāḍi-viṣaya-nivāsino rāṣṭrakūṭa-pramukhān kuṭuṁbinas samāhūya ma-
³³⟦tī⟧ntri-purohita-senāpati-yuvarājādy-aṣṭādaśa-tī{E}⟨r⟩tth¿o?⟨ā⟩dhyakṣam ittham ā-
³⁴j⟨ñ⟩¿a?⟨ā⟩payati|

tena ◯ kākatya-guṇḍyana-nāmadheyena(|) prārtthyamānair asmābhiḥ|

tasm(ai) do¿t?⟨m⟩mana-nāmne-
⁵⁵māṁgallu nāma gr(ā)mas sa¿vvā?⟨rvva⟩-kara-parih(ā)reṇa (U)daka-pū⟨r⟩vvam uttarāyaṇa-ni-
⁵⁶mitt(e) Agrahārīkr̥ty(ā){tta(ca)}smābhi(r) ddatta ¿ga?⟨I⟩ti viditam astu vaḥ

Asyāva(dh)aya(ḥ)[.]
^{⎘ plate 5r 57}pū¿m?⟨rv⟩vataḥ| koḍupulū¿v?⟨r⟩i pola-garusuna yilindi-guṇṭa| Āgneyataḥ kuṟṟa-
⁵⁸labola pannasa| dakṣiṇataḥ laṁjiya(mā)ḍa-sīmā| (nai)rr̥t¡i!⟨ya⟩taḥ munna-nad¿i?⟨ī⟩|
⁵⁹paścimataḥ pallikaṇṭi-bhaṭāraṇḍu| vāyavyataḥ muyyalu-kaṭṭu| Uttarataḥ
⁶⁰koṇḍṟūri ◯ pola-garusuna cintalu⟨|⟩ ¡Ī!⟨Ai⟩ś¿a?⟨ā⟩nataḥ muyyalu-ku-
⁶¹(ṭṭ)una pulu◯gudla-guṇṭa| Asyopari na ⟨kena⟩cid bā(dh)ā kartta¡vv!yā ya(ẖ) ka-
⁶²(ro)ti sa paṁca-mahāpātaka-saṁyukto bhavati[.] tathoktaṁ vyāsena|

(Ājña)p(t)i(ḥ) ka(ḍ)aka-rā(ja)ḥ[.] potana(bha)ṭṭa-kr̥ti(ḥ|)

Apparatus

Translation by Dániel Balogh

Translation into French by Estienne-Monod 2008

Commentary

PVPS connects the name Voṭṭi to Sāmanta Viṣṭi mentioned, apparently as the family name of the Kākatīyas, in the Kazipet Dargah inscription of Tribhuvanamalla Duggarāja (Corpus of Telingana Inscriptions Part 3 pp 25-31, not traced). He thinks Viṣṭi may be derived either from Vr̥ṣṇi or from Skt viṣṭi = forced labour, and argues that viṭṭi is a legitimate Telugu form of that word, while voṭṭi may be a corruption of the former.

This stanza was probably quite awkward to begin with. Compounded with the deplorable work done on it by the scribe, and with damage that has rendered some characters illegible, I see no way to reconstruct it properly. I do not see how it fits the context, since the previous stanza introduces Guṇḍiya, and the next one introduces his son Eṟiya. There is nothing in this stanza to imply another generation in between, so logically, it should say something about Guṇḍiya. Yet there is no pronoun, relative or demonstrative, that would make this explicit, so I cannot help but suspect that the subject of the stanza is in fact the Śrī of the Cālukyas (pāda b). The stanza might be about her departure to the Rāṣṭrakūṭas (or back to the Cālukyas from them?), and thus out of place here. However, śrīdvāra is apparently a technical term (cf. the Pedda-Gāḻiḍipaṟṟu grant of Amma II) for a status symbol, so this should probably be rejected.

Stanza 9 is hard to read in some spots, and harder to comprehend in more places. VR’s editor suggests deleting śrīmat, emending nanu to nānyo, ama to ahaṁ and mityakṣaṣṭa to °mīty ācaṣṭa, after which he thinks the stanza “may yield some sense,” but I fail to see this. PVPS’s reconstruction of the stanza, with hyphenation and some typos silently corrected to the best of my ability, runs as follows: cālukya-vaṁśodita-bhūmipāla-śrī-dvāram ājñānugataṁ praviśya| nūnam vipad-dvāram ahaṁ viśāmīty aksaṁsta vāṭam-gata-vallabheśam||. His translation of this (1969: 64) is: ‘He (Guṇḍiya) according to (his master’s) orders entered the Śrīdvāra of the kings of the Cālukya vaṁśa saying “I will certainly enter the gates of death”, and enabled Vallabheśa to penetrate into Vāṭa.’ On the same page, he tentatively interprets ‘the vāṭa’ as ‘fortified town’, whereas, still on the same page, he says it was ‘probably Vijayavāḍa.’ In his discussion of Kākatīya history (1978: 21) he paraphrases the stanza to say, ‘Guṇḍiya Rāṣṭrakūṭa entered vipad-dvāra (the gate of risk) in order to help his master Vallabheśa while capturing Vāṭa or Vijayavāṭa, the capital of the Eastern Cālukya king’.

The verb of the main sentence is indeed probably to be sought in the string read by previous editors as akṣaṣṭa, and PVPS’s emendation is attractive because it involves only slight intervention. However, I have strong reservations about understanding kṣam as “enable,” much less “help.” I also have misgivings about his heavy-handed emendation ājñānugata and, even if accepted, the role of this word in the syntax; as well as about his assertion that vāṭa means the city of Vijayavāṭa and his claim that aksaṁsta vāṭam-gata-vallabheśam can be taken to mean ‘enabled Vallabheśa to penetrate into Vāṭa’. The emendation of the verb proposed by VR’s editor is even more heavy-handed. I am most inclined to read it as akṣeṣṭa, as there may in fact be an e instead of anusvāra over the kṣ. If this is correct, then this reading requires no emendation whatsoever; if it is not, then my emendation is the by far the least invasive of those proposed. To the best of my knowledge this is a legitimate s-aorist (middle voice singular third person) from kṣi, probably used here in the sense of “inhabit.”

PVPS (1969: 64–65) reasons that Guṇḍiya must have been in league with the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, which I find by and large acceptable. I do not think the fact that he is called a rāṣṭrakūṭa should be taken as evidence that he had any kinship connection to the imperial Rāṣṭrakūṭas, but we do know that Dānārṇava, who is now rewarding Guṇḍiya’s descendant, gained the throne of Veṅgī with the approval and probably outright support of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas; and if the still unpublished Masulipatnam plates (or Veḍatalūru grant) of Bhīma I (ibid.: 64; (Venkataramanayya 1949: 217) are correctly interpreted on this point, then we may be quite certain that the same Guṇḍiya was, at least at some point in time, an enemy of Bhīma I and was slain by Bhīma’s son(?) Iṟimaṟtigaṇḍa.

That said, I find it unlikely that our text might mean what PVPS, as cited above, wants it to mean. In addition to the textual and syntactical problems indicated above, we now know that a śrīdvāra (line 49 of the Pedda-Gāḻidipaṟṟu grant of Amma II and my commentary there; line 83 of the Raṇastipūṇḍi grant of Vimalāditya) is an honour conferred by a suzerain on a worthy underling, and not the gate of a city or fortress. Thus, the stanza cannot be about Guṇḍiya’s ostensible breaching of a Cālukya stronghold. Moreover, we must keep in mind that Dānārṇava, or his PR officer Potana Bhaṭṭa, is in something of a tough situation here. He must acknowledge his indebtedness to the Voḍḍi clan (and, indirectly, to the Rāṣṭrakūṭas) while maintaining a proud Cālukyan façade and at least a semblance of independence.

The readings and emendations I suggest in my edition are by no means certain, but they are permitted by the evidence, and fit into my perception of the context. I believe that Guṇḍiya was initially a subordinate of the Veṅgī Cālukyas, but the lands he controlled came at some point (probably in the reign of Bhīma I) under the sway of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. He may have actively sought Rāṣṭrakūṭa protection or may have offered token resistance before submitting. At any rate, the present inscription seems to claim that a Rāṣṭrakūṭa ruler (Kr̥ṣṇa II?) offered Guṇḍiya the honour of the śrīdvāra (i.e. recognition as an eminent underlord). However, the stalwart man refused this on the grounds that he had already sworn fealty to, and been recognised as worthy by, the Cālukyas.^↓23 He then set up his seat, either in nominal independence or in continuing nominal subordination to the Cālukyas, at a place vacated (presumably after conquest) by the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king. At a slightly later time, his allegiance may have shifted further away from the Cālukyas, culminating in his death at the hand of Iṟimaṟtigaṇḍa. However, this still need not mean that he was at this time a professed Rāṣṭrakūṭa subordinate; in fact, the Masulipatnam plates mentioned above seem rather to say that Iṟimaṟtigaṇḍa defeated Guṇḍiya by means of a Rāṣṭrakūṭa army (vallabha-daṇḍeṇa guṇḍayākhyaṁ hatvā), though the interpretation offered for this by Venkataramanayya, namely that he defeated Guṇḍiya along with a Rāṣṭrakūṭa army, cannot be excluded. Be that as it may, the power relations involved here must have been more complex than the scant evidence allows us to see, and definitely very fluid.

There remains a question of what the vāṭa mentioned in this stanza may have been. If my reconstruction of the text is anywhere close to correct, then there seems to be no alternative but to understand this word as referring to a place, as suggested by PVPS. It may mean “enclosure,” and although vāṭa on its own rather means a garden or park, the abundance of settlement names ending in this word may imply that it also meant a fortification. Or it may be an abbreviated form of such a settlement name. If so, I do not think Vijayavāṭa is a plausible candidate for the town where Guṇḍiya took up residence. Much rather, it may stand for Kuṟṟavāḍi, the place where Guṇḍiya’s son Eṟiya/Eṟṟa is known from the Bayyaram inscription to have ruled (Parabrahma Sastry 1969, line 19). It may be added to this that according to the identifications proposed by Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramanayya (in Yazdani 1960: 481), Kuṟṟavāḍi is modern Kuravi (17°31’28.9 “N 80°00’06.6 “E) and Peruvaṅgūr, where Guṇḍiya was killed, is modern Peddavangara (17°33’28.2 “N 79°34’56.5 “E), a mere 44 km west of the former.

Bibliography

Reported in ARIE 1916-1917: page 6, appendix A/1916–1917, № 1 with a description at ARIE 1916-1917: pages 115–116, §24. First edited from inked impressions by V. Rangacharya (1955-1956), with facsimiles but without translation. Re-edited by P. V. Parabrahma Sastry (1969) with inferior reproductions of the same impressions, also without translation. Part of this edition (lines 21 to 45 and some text from ll54-56) was re-published in Parabrahma Sastry 1978: pages 305–307, appendix 1 without any change except the odd new typo. The present edition by Dániel Balogh is based on a collation of the previous editions with Rangacharya’s facsimiles.^↓24

Primary

Secondary

Notes

↑1. Vijayāditya V is named Beta in some records of his much later descendants. In this text, the received reading is Bheka, which is in my opinion a scribal mistake for arbhaka (see the apparatus to line 17), though a deliberate slur is not altogether out of the question. The word bheka means a frog and, at least in lexicons, also a coward.
↑2. Though I feel quite certain that this is the intended meaning of the first statement in this stanza, the text is vague and may stand in need of correction. Whereas the second statement includes the reason why the divine exemplar is inferior, I do not see one here and do not know why the Earth Goddess would be thought of as particularly rustic (perhaps because she is worshipped in villages?) and how Brahmā is associated with her (perhaps because he is born of a lotus, which in turn normally rises out of mud?).
↑3. Eighteen dignitaries, normally called mahāmātra, are listed inArthaśāstra 12.6 and referred to by the term tīrtha in Arthaśāstra 12.20.
↑4. I am not sure my translation exactly reflects the bitextual meaning intended by the composer, especially in the long and rather awkward compound beginning with muktāphala.
↑5. There are definitely some errors in the text here (see the apparatus to line 36) and I have not been able to reconstruct it, but the composer’s intent must have been something along these lines.
↑6. This stanza is all but incomprehensible, owing to multiple blunders of the engraver and some damage at crucial spots. My translation rests on a number of tentative emendations, and is very uncertain. See the apparatus to lines 37 to 39 for the textual problems, and the commentary for a discussion of the purport.
↑7. This sentence is continued in line 54 after the introduction of the donee. The logical subject (in the original, the agent of the sentence in the passive) is repeated there.
↑8. There is some uncertainty of the text here, for which see the apparatus to lines 47 and 48. With the reading and emendation suggested by the previous editors, the translation would be “His son was a servant of the lotus that is the two feet of Śrīdhara, a Brahmin by birth, renowned by the name Śrīdhara for being as excellent as Śrīdhara.” The repetition of Śrīdhara with the same meaning in the first and third instance would be poor poetry and there seems to be no need to emphasise that he was born a Brahmin, so I prefer to avoid emendation. If the correct reading were jātyā, I would still prefer to retain bhūdeva- and understand the text to say (somewhat needlessly) that Śrīdhara was Viddamayya’s son by birth.
↑9. Throughout this passage, I translate the Telugu phrases tentatively and incompletely on the basis of words occurring in other Eastern Cālukya inscriptions and translated by the respective editors.
↑10. Pannasa is an obscure term that may mean land held in some sort of tenure. See Sircar 1966: s.v. pannasa.
↑11. Estienne-Monod translates l’étang au lotus.
↑12. Ce roi est sans doute Guṇagāṁka
↑13. ou Śabara-Vallabha
↑14. Feudataire des Rāṣṭrakūṭa, cf. supra II, B, 1, p 25.
↑15. corr. pour Meḻaimha.
↑16. Il s’agit Kollabhigaṇḍa-Vijayāditya.
↑17. Jeu de mots sur l’opposition entrela mer et la terre, entre le « souverain des flots » et celui qui « administre la terre », ce paradoxe est un virodha, marquée notamment par l’emploi de la particule api. Ainsi, contrairement à l’éditeur de ce texte, nous n’estimons pas que le terme dānārṇava soit à interpréter comme un nom.
↑18. Nous n’avons pu proposer de traduction pertinente de ce vers.
↑19. La liane est un topos qui renvoie à l’amante. Ce composé laisse suggérer que la gloire, telle une amante passionnée, ne délaisse jamais le roi.
↑20. Gardiens et intendants des lieux saints ou allusion à la liste de 18 tīrtha, officiers, fournie dans l’Arthaśāstra, I, 12.
↑21. Le vers 9 contient des formes irrecevables. L’éditeur constate qu’en substituant 4 composés du texte et en les remplaçant par d’autres termes, it may yield some sense.
↑22. Jeu de mots sur le terme śrīdhara qui désigne à la fois le personnage et l’époux de Śrī, Viṣṇu.
↑23. Stanza 20 of the Ciṁbuluru plates of Vijayāditya III says that the general Pāṇḍaraṅga had undertaken an eka-pati-vrata, which presumably means much the same as the sentiment I detect here.
↑24. No image of the seal is available.