Ellore plates of Devavarman

These plates are the only record of the Salankayana king Devavarman.¹² They are also the only grant of the dynasty in which a king claims the horse sacrifice.¹² E. Hultzsch edited them in 1908.¹ He used them to give the family the name by which it has been known since: the Salankayana Maharajas of Vengipura.¹

Discovery and description

Hultzsch worked from two sets of ink impressions sent to him by V. Venkayya.³ Venkayya had received the plates from the Collector of Kistna district.³ He reported that they belonged to the Head Assistant Collector of Narsapur, in whose office they had lain for a long time.³⁴ He added that “the person from whom they were originally obtained is not known”.³⁴ The name “Ellore plates” therefore refers to the village addressed in the grant, not to a recorded findspot.¹

There are four plates, about 5¾ inches long and 2¼ to 2⅜ inches high, without raised rims.⁴ Venkayya cut the ring for the first time.⁴ Its ends were fixed under an oval seal, which was almost worn away.⁴ On it he saw “a faint trace of some quadruped—perhaps a tiger”.⁴

D. C. Sircar thought the figure was more probably a bull, the emblem found on the seals of the other Salankayana kings.⁵ The inner faces are numbered in order like the pages of a book.⁴ The sacred syllable om stands in place of the figure 1.⁴

Script and language

The letters are like those of the grants of the Pallava Simhavarman and of the Kolleru plates of Nandivarman.⁴ The grant is in Prakrit prose, except for the last plate, which carries two of the usual Sanskrit verses.⁴

Hultzsch noted that its Prakrit is more archaic (older in form) than literary Prakrit in one important point.⁴ Single consonants between vowels are generally kept.⁴ Unlike the cave inscriptions, it writes double consonants in full.⁴ The month name Pausha appears in its Sanskrit form.⁴

Content

The grant was issued “from the prosperous and victorious Vengipura” by the word of the Maharaja Vijaya-Devavarman.¹⁶ He is called “the performer of horse-sacrifices, the Salankayana, the fervent Mahesvara”.¹⁶ The grant is addressed to the villagers of Elura, headed by the muluda.⁶ Hultzsch thought this word Dravidian but could not trace it.⁶

The grant orders that a Brahmin named Ganasarman of the Ba[bhura] gotra (clan) be given twenty nivartanas of land in a good locality.¹⁶ He was also to receive a house site for himself.¹⁶ He was to get another for the men who took half the crop and for his door-keepers, and to be free of all dues.¹⁶

The grant is dated on the tenth tithi (lunar day) of the dark fortnight of Pausha, in the thirteenth year of the reign.⁶ Sircar thought muluda, read differently in other Salankayana grants, probably meant the head of the village.⁵

The places

Hultzsch identified Elura with the modern town of Eluru (then Ellore), seven miles from Pedda-Vegi. Vengipura, the capital, had already been identified with Pedda-Vegi.¹ Hultzsch confirmed this identification on a visit there in 1902.¹ Villagers showed him a small mound as the site of the temple of Chitrarathasvamin, the family god of the Salankayanas.¹ See Vengi.

Date

Hultzsch placed Devavarman before Nandivarman, the son of Chandavarman.¹ His reason was that this grant is in Prakrit and Nandivarman’s in Sanskrit.¹ Dubreuil included Devavarman among Salankayana kings who reigned between about 350 and 450.⁷ Sircar argued in 1939 that the king could not be earlier than A.D. 300, and placed him about 320–345.⁸

B. V. Krishna Rao thought its month-and-fortnight dating later than the season-and-fortnight dating of the Kanukollu grant of Nandivarman I. Sircar, as editor, gave that grant and this one to the same age, about the middle of the 4th century.⁹¹⁰ Sewell’s chronology of 1932 lists this grant, with the Komarti plates, under about the 4th century.¹¹

Footnotes

1. Hultzsch, “Plates of Vijaya-Devavarman” (1908), p. 58 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

2. R. Subba Rao, “Pedavegi Copper-plates of Nandivarman II”, Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society I, pt. 2 (1926), p. 97 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

3. E. Hultzsch, “Plates of Vijaya-Devavarman”, Epigraphia Indica IX (1907–08), p. 56 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Hultzsch, “Plates of Vijaya-Devavarman” (1908), p. 57 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

5. Sircar, Successors of the Satavahanas (1939), p. 90 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

6. Hultzsch, “Plates of Vijaya-Devavarman” (1908), p. 59, text and translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

7. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, Ancient History of the Deccan (1920), p. 89 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. D. C. Sircar, The Successors of the Satavahanas in Lower Deccan (1939), p. 87, note 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

9. B. V. Krishna Rao, “Two Salankayana Charters from Kanukollu”, Epigraphia Indica XXXI (1955–56, publ. 1960), p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

10. Krishna Rao, “Two Salankayana Charters from Kanukollu” (1960), p. 3, with D. C. Sircar’s editorial notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

11. Robert Sewell and S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 18 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩