Diggubarru grant of Chalukya-Bhima II

These plates record a gift by Chalukya-Bhima II, also called Rajabhima, the Eastern Chalukya king who drove out Yuddhamalla II.¹ He reigned for twelve years, about 934–945.¹ The plates are not dated in an era, and J. F. Fleet placed them in that reign.²³ Their main interest lies in the verses that tell how the throne passed from hand to hand after the death of Amma I in 925.⁴¹

Discovery and present location

Fleet edited the plates in 1884 from the originals, which had belonged to Sir Walter Elliot.² Elliot had obtained them through Mr. John Morris from “Paganavaram” in the Madras Presidency.² He gave them to the British Museum.² F. Kielhorn’s list of 1903 enters them as the Paganavaram plates, formerly Elliot’s and then in the British Museum.⁵ None of the editors used here says where Paganavaram is, or where the granted village and its district lay.

Description

There are five plates, each a little over 8 inches long and 4 inches broad.² Their high rims have kept the writing in excellent condition almost throughout.² The ring had been cut when the grant came into Fleet’s hands.² The round seal, about 3 inches across, was very much worn.² Fleet could make out these marks on it:²

• at the top, the sun and moon and a standing boar facing left²
• across the centre, the legend Sri-Tribhuvanankusa²
• at the bottom, a floral device and apparently an elephant-goad²

The language is Sanskrit throughout.² Fleet later cited the plates for an old square form of one letter, written with two dots below.⁶

Content

Fleet summarised the inscription as an Eastern Chalukya record, “not specifically dated, of the time of Bhima II., also called Chalukya-Bhima, Vishnuvardhana, and Ganda-Mahendra”.² It records “the grant of the village of Diggubarru in the vishaya of Pagunavara, to a Brahman named Viddamayya, the son of Madhava-Somayajin, of the Gautama gotra”.²

Kielhorn’s list describes the king as the son of Vijayaditya IV and Melamba.⁵ In his chronology of 1891, Fleet noted a new detail in this record.⁷ It is the first record to say that the founder, Kubja-Vishnuvardhana, the brother of Satyasraya, reigned over the Vengi country (Vengi-mandala).⁷

The family line gives the reigns of all the earlier kings.⁵ Kielhorn summarised it as follows:⁵

• Narendramrigaraja (Vijayaditya II) reigned 48 years.⁵
• Gunaga-Vijayaditya (III), who killed Mangi and burnt Kiranapura, reigned 44 years.⁵
• Chalukya-Bhima I, son of the crown prince Vikramaditya, reigned 30 years.⁵
• Then followed Vijayaditya IV for six months, and his eldest son Amma I for seven years.⁵
• Taha (Tadapa) drove out Amma’s son Vijayaditya and reigned for a month.⁵
• Chalukya-Bhima’s son Vikramaditya killed Taha and reigned for eleven months.⁵
• Amma’s son Bhima defeated Vikramaditya and reigned for eight months.⁵
• Malla, Taha’s eldest son, killed Bhima and reigned for seven years.⁵
• Finally the donor, Chalukya-Bhima II, drove out Malla.⁵

The civil war of 925–934

Fleet used this grant, his record M, as the only source for one of the kings of the civil war.¹ He numbered Amma I’s younger son, who reigned for eight months, as Bhima III.¹ This reign is “mentioned only in M”.¹ The record says that Bhima conquered Vikramaditya II in war and was then killed by Yuddhamalla II, the son of Tadapa.¹

The other grants say only that Vikramaditya II conquered Tadapa.⁴¹ This one adds that he killed him, and it calls Yuddhamalla simply “Malla”, to fit the metre.⁴¹ The later grants pass straight from Tadapa to his son.⁴¹ See Yuddhamalla II and the succession wars.

The verse that names Yuddhamalla was later read in two ways.¹³ In 1891 Fleet noted that this grant and one other call him the eldest son of Tadapa.¹ In 1903 he pointed out that the phrase Taha-jyeshtha-suta, “while ordinarily and most naturally meaning ‘eldest son of Taha’”, might also mean “son of an elder brother of Taha”.³

Fleet raised this because the Kaluchumbarru grant seemed to call Yuddhamalla the son of an elder brother of Talapa.³ He decided that the other records were more explicit, and that the Kaluchumbarru composer had made a mistake.³

The man who received the grant

The same Brahmin received another grant from the same king.⁸ In 1899 Kielhorn edited a grant of Chalukya-Bhima II of a field at Akulamannandu in the Gudravara district.⁸ He noted that its donee, Viddamayya, was also the donee of the Paganavaram grant.⁸ In the Paganavaram grant his father’s father is called Turkama, where the other grant has Tyakkiya.⁸

V. Rangacharya’s list of 1919 describes the donee of the Akulamannandu grant as a scholar of the kramapatha (a way of reciting the Veda).⁹ It names him as Viddamayya, son of Madhava Somayaji of Vangiparru.⁹

The king’s number

Fleet’s 1884 edition calls the donor Bhima II, and Kielhorn’s list Chalukya-Bhima II. Fleet’s chronology of 1891 numbers him Chalukya-Bhima II (also Vishnuvardhana VII), and the eight-month king of 926–927 Bhima III. This page follows that numbering, as the site does.²⁵¹ Robert Sewell’s chronicle of 1932 numbers them the other way round. It calls Amma I’s son, the king killed by Yuddhamalla after eight months, Bhima II.¹⁰ It calls the king who later banished Beta-Vijayaditya Chalukya-Bhima III.¹⁰

Footnotes

1. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 269 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. J. F. Fleet, “Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. CXLVIII”, Indian Antiquary XIII (1884), p. 213 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶

3. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 181 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 268 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. F. Kielhorn, “A List of the Inscriptions of Southern India”, Appendix to Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 95, No. 560 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

6. J. F. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant of Vijayaditya-Amma II”, Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 178 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

7. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 270 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

8. F. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions”, E: grant of Chalukya-Bhima II, Epigraphia Indica V (1898–99), p. 135 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. II (1919), p. 878, Kistna district, Bandar taluk, No. 8 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

10. Robert Sewell and S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 44 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²