Chebrolu inscription of Jaya

What it is

The inscription is engraved on the four faces of a pillar at the Nagesvara temple at Chebrolu.¹ It is the right-hand one of two pillars in front of the gopura (gate tower).¹ Chebrolu was in the Bapatla taluk of the old Krishna (then Kistna) district.¹ E. Hultzsch edited the inscription in Epigraphia Indica in 1899.¹ He worked from an inked estampage (ink copy) made by H. Krishna Sastri in 1897.¹

Hultzsch found it so well preserved that its letters “can be read as easily as print”.¹ It is in the Telugu alphabet, in Sanskrit verse with a long passage of Telugu prose.¹

Contents

After invocations, the verses give the family line of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva, from Durjaya through Beta, Prola, Rudra, Mahadeva and Ganapati.¹ Verses 13–27 concern Jaya, or Jayana, whose family line is given in the Ganapesvaram inscription.² He was chief of the elephant troops of King Ganapati.² In the month of Chaitra of Saka 1135 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years), the year Srimukha, he received from his sovereign the city of Chebrolu.²

The verses call the town the city of Shanmukha, after its temple of Kumarasvamin, the present Nagesvara.² They also call it Tamrapuri.² Hultzsch took both names for Sanskrit renderings of the Telugu Chembrolu.² The verses credit Jaya with building a wall round Chebrolu and repairing its temples.²

The temple lists

The Telugu portion lists the villages and shares belonging to the temples of Chebrolu.² It also lists the persons who had given lamps.² Hultzsch thought the list was compiled from the temple records at Jaya’s order.²

Among the temples named is one of Ananta-Jina.² It perhaps stood on the site of a Siva temple in whose courtyard Krishna Sastri found three carved Jaina figures.² The list of shares names the temple’s servants.³ Among them are three hundred dancing-girls, a dancing-master, drummers, singers, an astrologer, a doctor and an accountant.³

Date and significance

Hultzsch called Saka 1135 (1213–14) “the earliest authenticated date of Ganapati’s reign”.² He thought the inscription itself might have been engraved some years later, since Jaya’s buildings would have taken time.²

A postscript to the edition prints part of another inscription of Jaya.³ It stands on a pillar now built into the roof of the Lingodbhavasvamin temple at Tsandavolu, “the capital of the chiefs of Velanandu”.³ See Chandavolu and the Velanati Chodas.

The Godavari District Gazetteer (1907) called this Chebrolu record the first undoubted Kakatiya inscription in the Vengi country.⁴ It read the Tsandavolu inscription as showing that Ganapati overcame the Velanandu chiefs.⁴

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry took the date as the time when Ganapati made Jaya governor of the Velanadu country.⁵ In his view this came after the defeat of the Velanati king Prithvisvara.⁵ He noted that the same inscription says Ganapati gave Jaya the lordship of the region on his return from his southern expedition.⁶

Older records at Chebrolu

Hultzsch noted that an older inscription at Chebrolu, of the Velanati chief Gonka, is dated in Saka 998 (1076).² Gordon Mackenzie (1883) recorded inscriptions of Prataparudra’s reign at the Nagesvara temple.⁷ He also recorded a local tradition about the old temples of Chebrolu.⁷ According to it, treasure-seekers under the zamindar (landholder) Vasireddi Venkatadri Nayudu damaged them early in the 19th century.⁷

Footnotes

1. E. Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya; after Saka-Samvat 1135”, Epigraphia Indica V (1899), p. 142 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya” (1899), p. 143 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

3. Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya” (1899), p. 150 and postscript (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari, Vol. I (1907), p. 24 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

5. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 108. ↩ ↩²

6. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 109. ↩

7. Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kistna District (1883), p. 203 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³