Bukkarayasamudram tank inscription (1364)

The inscription

V. Rangacharya’s list of 1919 opens the Anantapur district with this record.¹ At that time the department had copied no inscriptions in the Anantapur taluk.¹ The Mackenzie manuscripts, he wrote, gave notices of seven places with inscriptions under the heading Anantapuram.¹ But “the only place which can be certainly attributed to it is Bukkarayasamudram, the tank at Anantapur”.¹

His entry calls the language Kanarese (Kannada).¹ It reads: “On a stone at Bukkarayasamudram. A Kanarese record dated Saka 1286 Krodhi, in the reign of Bukka Raya of Vijayanagar. Records that his Minister Anantarasa Udayar excavated the tank and built a temple of Sankara on its banks.”¹ Saka 1286 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years) corresponds to 1364–65. See Bukka I.

The chronicle and the lists

The same work is the first event in the Anantapur chronicle that C. P. Brown translated in 1853 from the Mackenzie manuscripts.² It says that “While Bucca Rayalu ruled Vidyanagar [Vijayanagar] on the banks of the Pampa”, his chief servant Chikkappa Wadeyar “built a lake”.² It gives the year as “the SS. year 1286 answering to ‘Krodhi’ [A.D. 1364]”.²

Chikkappa Wadeyar built two villages at the lake’s two outlets.² The one at the eastern mouth “he named Bucca Raya’s Sea … thus naming it after his lord”.² He named the village at the western mouth “after his lady, Ananta-Sagaram”.² He also dammed the Chitravati and built two more villages, Bucca Patnam and another Ananta Sagaram.²

Robert Sewell’s lists of 1882 follow the chronicle.³ According to Sewell, “The great reservoir here called the Bukka Raya Samudram was constructed by Chikka Udayar”.³ He calls Chikka Udayar “minister of the early Vijayanagar king Bukka Raya” and gives the year as “S.S. 1286 (A.D. 1364)”.³

The Anantapur gazetteer of 1905 also gives the builder as “Chikkappa Udaiyar, Diwan to king Bukka I”.⁴ It explains that the western village, Anantasagaram, “was afterwards called Anantapuram and is the present town of Anantapur”.⁴

The inscription, as Rangacharya summarised it, agrees with the chronicle on the year and the king.¹ But it names the minister Anantarasa Udayar.¹ By E. Hultzsch’s reading of a Penukonda inscription, an Anantarasa-Odeyaru is also the minister who built the fort of Penukonda in 1354.⁵ See the Penukonda fort inscription.

Musalamma

Brown’s chronicle goes on to tell how the lake grew so full that its sluices could not carry the flood.⁶⁷ Then the goddess Ganga took possession of a woman and demanded a human sacrifice.⁶⁷ Musalamma was the youngest daughter-in-law of Basi Reddi of Bukka Raya Samudram.⁶⁷ She dressed herself as a bride and went up on the embankment to be built into the breach, and the waters stopped.⁶⁷ The chronicle says that “from that day [Saint] Musalamma is worshipped.”⁶⁷

The gazetteer of 1905 found three margosa (neem) trees, with a viragal (hero stone) and other stones, still marking the spot.⁴ Sheep and fowls were “still occasionally offered to the shade of the girl” there.⁴ See Bukkarayasamudram.

Footnotes

1. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. I (1919), p. 1, Anantapur No. 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. C. P. Brown (tr.), The Wars of the Rajas, being the History of Anantapuram (1853), p. 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

3. Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (1882), p. 117 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Anantapur (1905), p. 143 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. E. Hultzsch, “Ranganatha Inscription of Goppana; Saka-Samvat 1293”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), p. 327 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

6. Brown, The Wars of the Rajas (1853), p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. Brown, The Wars of the Rajas (1853), p. 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵