Amaravati inscription of Krishnadeva Raya (1515)

The slab

H. Luders edited the inscription in 1903 “from inked estampages supplied by Dr. Hultzsch”.¹² He wrote that it “is engraved on a slab in the Samnyasin’s room in the Amaresvara temple at Amaravati in the Kistna district.”¹² It “contains 53 lines of writing.”¹² The alphabet is Telugu of the same type as the Mangalagiri pillar inscription.¹² The language is Sanskrit verse, apart from the opening and closing words.¹² See Amaravati.

The king and his conquests

Luders wrote: “The greater portion of it consists of verses already known to us from other records. New are only the verses 7, 9, 10 and 12.”² Verse 7 says that from king Narasa “was born by Nagamamba king Krishnaraya”.²

Luders found verse 9 “of greater interest”.² It praises Krishnaraya as the king “who, having taken by a forcible attack Sivanasamudra, Udayadri, Vinikonda and Bellakonda”, then took Kondavidu.² Before that, he had “captured alive on the battle-field Virabhadra, the son of the Gajapati king”.²

Luders called this account, “although rather meagre, … of considerable importance”.² He said so because it was “the first epigraphical record of Krishnaraya’s warlike exploits up to the conquest of Kondavidu”.² He thought that the events were listed in their order.² See Krishnadeva Raya.

Sivanasamudram, on an island in the Kaveri, belonged to the Ummattur chiefs.²³ The king put down their revolt first.²³ Luders connected the revolt with a letter of 1510 in the Commentaries of Albuquerque.²³ The letter reported that the king of Narsinga was preparing an attack on a rebel vassal who had seized the city of “Pergunda”.²³

Luders accepted Robert Sewell’s identification of Pergunda with Penukonda.²³ He suggested that the war “would thus appear to have arisen from a dispute about this hill-fort”.²³ An inscription of 1504 had already given the lord of Ummattur the title “Penugonda-chakresvara”.²³ See Penukonda.

Udayagiri, Vinukonda, Bellamkonda and Kondavidu belonged to the campaign against the Gajapati of Orissa.³ Luders noted that Nuniz describes the eighteen-month siege of Udayagiri, but not the taking of Vinukonda and Bellamkonda.³ He thought this was “probably because these places were only of secondary importance”.³ He also noted that, by the inscriptions at Mangalagiri, Kaza and Kondavidu, the fortress of Kondavidu surrendered on 23 June 1515.³ See Udayagiri, Kondavidu and the Mangalagiri pillar inscription.

Virabhadra and the date

Both Portuguese chroniclers tell of the capture of Virabhadra, the Gajapati’s son.³⁴ In Nuniz’s longer account, the prince was taken at Kondapalli, more than three months after Kondavidu fell.³⁴ He later killed himself at Vijayanagara, rather than fight a low-born swordsman.³⁴

Luders wrote: “The only discrepancy between the chronicle and the inscription is with respect to the date when the prince was taken captive”.³⁴ The inscription places the capture before the fall of Kondavidu.³⁴

Verse 10 gives the date in a word-code, where each word stands for a number.⁴ The date is “in the Saka year marked by the Munis (7), the towns (3), the oceans (4), and the moon (1)”.⁴ It is “in the year Yuvan, on the twelfth day in the month Ashadha”.⁴

On that day, it says, the king “duly performed the gift called tulapurusha”.⁴ He also “gave away many incomparable agraharas in the presence of the god Sulapani, who is renowned in the world as Amaresa, on the bank of the Krishnaveni”.⁴

Luders took this to be the very day of the fall of Kondavidu, and he left the conflict open.⁴ The text may have been composed months after the event.⁴ But he added that “it is equally possible that Nunes has made a slight mistake, and that Virabhadra was taken captive on an earlier occasion”.⁴ The inscription ends with a verse asking the blessing of Amaresa on Krishnaraya.⁴

In his edition of the Mangalagiri pillar, Luders had already noted the Kondavidu story of the Portuguese chronicle.⁵ There he dated the fall of the fort to Saturday, 23 June 1515.⁵ See the Gajapatis and Prataparudra.

Footnotes

1. H. Luders, “Amaravati Inscription of Krishnaraya of Vijayanagara; Saka-Samvat 1437”, Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 17 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Luders, “Amaravati Inscription of Krishnaraya”, Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 18 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰

3. Luders, “Amaravati Inscription of Krishnaraya”, Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 19 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶

4. Luders, “Amaravati Inscription of Krishnaraya”, Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 20 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

5. H. Luders, “Two Pillar Inscriptions of the time of Krishnaraya of Vijayanagara”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), p. 111 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²