Chicacole plates of Devendravarman, son of Gunarnava

By this copper-plate grant, the Ganga king Devendravarman, son of Gunarnava, gave a village to six Brahmin brothers.¹² It is dated in “the one-hundred-and-eighty-third year” of the reign.¹ Its number symbols include an early decimal figure for 0.³

Discovery

E. Hultzsch edited these plates in 1895, from the originals.³ They had been found in the record room of the Principal Assistant Collector of Ganjam at Srikakulam, the modern Srikakulam.³ G. V. Ramamurti of Parlakimedi told him about the plates.³ He had “no doubt that this set of plates is the missing one of the six sets which were dug up at Chicacole some years ago and purchased by Mr. Grahame”.³

Robert Sewell’s Lists of Antiquities (1882) describes that find.⁴ A householder digging foundations came on a large pot.⁴ In it, six copper-plate grants hung by their rings from an iron bar.⁴ W. F. Grahame rescued them and gave them to the Madras Museum, where one set was lost or mislaid.⁴

J. F. Fleet edited several of the others in the Indian Antiquary.⁵⁶ Among them were grants of the Ganga kings Indravarman, of the years 128 and 146, and of Devendravarman son of Anantavarman.⁵⁶ V. Rangacharya noted that Srikakulam was “epigraphically … famous as the site of the six Ganga plates of Grahame”.⁷

The plates and the seal

There are three plates.³ Their ring had not been cut, and its ends were fixed in a small oval seal.³ The seal bears, in relief, “a recumbent bull, which faces the proper right and is surmounted by a crescent”.³ The writing was “in a state of very good preservation”.³

The language is “not very correct Sanskrit”.³ It is in prose, apart from three verses that curse anyone who breaks the grant and a verse naming the writer.³ Hultzsch found that the alphabet was like that of the Achyutapuram plates.³ It shared with them Nagari forms of two letters.³

The grant

The edict is issued “from the victorious (city of) Kalinganagara, which is the ornament of the whole earth”.² It is issued by “the son of the glorious Gunarnava, the glorious Maharaja Devendravarman”.² He was a worshipper of Mahesvara, and of the god Gokarnasvamin “established on the sinless peak of the Mahendra mountain”.²

The edict gives the village of Poppangika, in the Saraumatamba subdivision of the Kroshtukavartani district.¹² It gives it as an agrahara (Brahmin village) to six Brahmin brothers of the Chhandoga school, who lived at Kalinganagara.¹²

The gift was made in the month of Magha, while the sun was moving north.¹ The edict itself was written out in “the one-hundred-and-eighty-third year (in words and numerical symbols) of the reign”.¹ The day was “the twentieth (solar) day … of the month of Sravana”.¹

Numerals

Hultzsch pointed out that line 26 of the plates gives the number symbols for 100, 80, 3 and 20, “and, combined with the last, of the decimal figure for 0”.³

Date and identity

Neither date contains details that can be checked by calculation.¹ Hultzsch wrote that “nothing can at present be said about Devendravarman, the son of Gunarnava”.¹ He could say only that this king must be different from Devendravarman son of Anantavarman.¹ He also noted that the name Gunarnava occurs twice among the ancestors of Chodaganga.¹

Sewell counted the Ganga era from 877–78.⁸ He placed the grant in 1061, and identified its donor with the Ganga king Rajaraja I, son of Vajrahasta.⁸ On V. V. Mirashi’s starting year of 498, the year 183 falls in about 681.⁹

There is a second grant of Devendravarman son of Gunarnava, found in the Visakhapatnam (then Vizagapatam) taluk.¹⁰¹¹ It is dated in the year 195 of the “Kalinganka” era.¹⁰¹¹ According to Rangacharya’s summary, it gave land in the same village of Siddharthaka as the Achyutapuram plates.¹⁰¹¹ The date on this page follows Mirashi’s starting year; see the Eastern Gangas and Rajaraja I.

Footnotes

1. Hultzsch, “Chicacole Plates of Devendravarman” (1895), p. 131 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

2. Hultzsch, “Chicacole Plates of Devendravarman” (1895), p. 133, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

3. E. Hultzsch, “Chicacole Plates of Gunarnava’s Son Devendravarman; the Year 183”, Epigraphia Indica III (1894–95), p. 130 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

4. Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (1882), p. 7, Chicacole (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. J. F. Fleet, “Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions” (Chicacole grant of Indravarman, the year 128), Indian Antiquary XIII (1884), pp. 119–120 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

6. Fleet, “Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions” (Chicacole plates of Devendravarman son of Anantavarman), Indian Antiquary XIII (1884), pp. 273–274 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

7. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. I (1919), p. 683, Chicacole (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 76 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

9. V. V. Mirashi, “Epoch of the Ganga Era”, Epigraphia Indica XXVI (1941–42), p. 333 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

10. Rangacharya, Topographical List, Vol. III (1919), p. 1674, Vizagapatam No. 68-A (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

11. Rangacharya, Topographical List, Vol. III (1919), p. 1675, continuation of No. 68-A (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³