Dommara-Nandyala plates of Punyakumara

Discovery

H. K. Narasimhaswami was copying stone inscriptions at Dommara-Nandyala, in the Jammalamadugu taluk of the Kadapa (then Cuddapah) district, in 1940–41.¹ There the villagers showed him the plates.¹ Some years earlier a kinsman of theirs, ploughing a field, had struck a sealed earthen pot.¹ The plates lay in it, packed in paddy husk.¹ When the owner learnt that they recorded only a gift of land, he gave them to the Government Epigraphist’s office.¹

The plates and the seal

The set has three rectangular plates strung on a copper ring, whose ends are soldered into a round seal.¹ The seal shows in high relief a rampant lion (standing on its hind legs) with a prominent mane and raised left paw.¹ Narasimhaswami noted how neatly the plates and seal are made compared with the Malepadu plates.¹ The language is Sanskrit prose, apart from an opening verse and a closing imprecatory verse (curse).²

Contents

The text is almost the same as that of the Malepadu plates.² It traces the family from Nandivarman and his sons Simhavishnu, Sundarananda and Dhananjayavarman.² Then come Dhananjayavarman’s son Mahendravarman, who took the title Chola-Maharaja, and his sons Gunamudita and Punyakumara, lord of Hiranyarashtra.²

In his tenth year, while camping at Pudorur, Punyakumara granted land in the villages of Nandigama and Pasindikuru to five Brahmanas.²³ The charter was written by Kottikuntaraja, the officer who appears in the Malepadu plates.²³ Narasimhaswami showed that the name H. Krishna Sastri had read there as Kottikuldaraja should be read Kottikuntaraja.²³

Siva as Lakutapani

The opening verse praises Siva as Lakutapani, a form linked with the Lakulisa (Pasupata) cult.² Narasimhaswami thought this record and one other set of plates gave the earliest inscriptional reference to that form of Siva then known in south India.²

Date

Narasimhaswami compared the letters with the Kendur and Vakkaleri plates of the Chalukya Kirtivarman II.⁴ He placed both these plates and the Malepadu plates about the middle of the 8th century, with Punyakumara’s accession about 740.⁴ He noted that one letter, an open form of b, would by an older rule point to a date after 804.⁴ But he argued that the other letters are older.⁴

He worked back with 15 years for each brother who ruled in turn and 25 years for a generation.⁴⁵ In this way he placed Nandivarman’s accession about 630, and drew up a table of Pallava and Chalukya contemporaries.⁴⁵

H. Krishna Sastri had dated the Malepadu plates differently, to about the end of the 8th century.⁶⁷ Narasimhaswami’s date of about 740 also differs from the date that Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya gave for Punyakumara in the same volume, about 625.⁶⁷

Narasimhaswami also suggested that Mahendravarman’s title Chola-Maharaja may have been conferred on him by the Pallava Paramesvaravarman I.⁸ See Punyakumara and the Telugu Cholas of Renadu.

Footnotes

1. H. K. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates of Punyakumara; 10th Year”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 268 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 269 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. H. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates of Punyakumara; the Fifth Year”, Epigraphia Indica XI (1912), p. 339 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 270 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

5. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 271, synchronistic table (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

6. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 344 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

7. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 251 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

8. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 272 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩