Gudimallam plates of the Bana king Vikramaditya II

By these copper plates, the Bana prince Vikramaditya confirmed an old grant of the village of Viprapitha to its Brahmins.¹ Viprapitha was the Sanskrit name of Gudimallam, where the plates were found.²¹ They give the fullest family tree of the Bana kings of the 9th century.¹³

The plates

The plates were found at Gudimallam in the Kalahasti zamindari (landholder’s estate).² K. Raghaviah of Kalahasti sent them to H. Krishna Sastri, and they were bought for the Government Museum, Madras.² There are five plates, with writing on nine faces.² They hang on a copper ring fixed in a round seal.² The seal shows a bull lying down, with what looks like a lamp-stand and a crescent above it.²

Most of the text is in Sanskrit, in the Grantha script.² It ends with a short postscript in Tamil.² E. Hultzsch, who edited the plates in 1924, could not give a fully satisfactory translation of the eight opening verses to Siva.² He found the rest clear, though not always correct in wording.²

What they say

After the verses to Siva, the plates tell the legend of the demon king Bali, son of Virochana.¹ One of Bali’s descendants was King Nandivarman.¹ The line then runs through Vijayaditya, Malladeva “of the Bana race”, Jayameru (also called Vikramaditya), and Vijayaditya (also called Prabhumeru).¹ The donor was Vikramaditya, son of Prabhumeru.¹

A verse says that a king, perhaps the Nandivarman of the opening, had once given the village of Viprapitha to Brahmins.¹ With his father’s consent, Vikramaditya confirmed that gift.¹ He did so because the god of the Parasuramesvara temple had granted him a favour.¹ The Tamil postscript gives the village’s revenue assessment as 500 of paddy and ten kalanju (a gold weight) of gold.¹

What they settled

Before these plates, the only Bana family tree came from the Udayendiram plates.¹ The new plates showed that Prabhumeru of the Udayendiram plates was also called Vijayaditya.¹ They also showed that his father, called Banavidyadhara there, had the names Vikramaditya and Jayameru.¹

This let Hultzsch place other Bana records.¹³ Stone records at Gudimallam dated Saka 820 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years) and 827, and another of Saka 831, belong to Vijayaditya Prabhumeru.³ So he ruled about 900.³ The Udayendiram plates call his great-grandson Vikramaditya-Vijayabahu a friend of a king named Krishna.³ Scholars had taken this to be the Rashtrakuta Krishna II, about 900.³ Hultzsch argued that he must instead be Krishna III, about 950, who made wide conquests in the south.³

Where the sources disagree

Hultzsch’s dating also changed the place of the Ganga prince Prithivipati II Hastimalla.³ The Chola king Parantaka I gave him the title Banadhiraja (overlord of the Banas), and his records are dated in 915 and 921.³ Hultzsch concluded that Prithivipati was only a temporary usurper.³ In his view he was the Chola candidate, while the true Bana heir was protected by the Rashtrakutas.³

Footnotes

1. Hultzsch, “Gudimallam Plates” (1924), p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

2. E. Hultzsch, “Gudimallam Plates of the Bana King Vikramaditya II”, Epigraphia Indica XVII (1923–24), p. 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. Hultzsch, “Gudimallam Plates” (1924), p. 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹