Gudivada plates of Jayasimha I (three grants)

These are three grants of Jayasimha I, the second king of the Eastern Chalukyas.¹ M. Somasekhara Sarma edited them in 1960.¹ He judged that the first added nothing to the known history of the dynasty, and that its interest lay in its date.¹ All three concern land at or around the village now called Gudivada, and they were published together under one number in Epigraphia Indica.²³

Discovery

Somasekhara Sarma wrote that the plates came from Gudivada, a village in the Sarvasiddhi taluk of Visakhapatnam district.² They had long been kept there in the house of a landholder, Pericherla Peddiraju.² When, how and where they were first found was not known.²

A pleader (lawyer) of Yellamanchili, G. V. Raghavarao Pantulu, borrowed them from the owner, his client.² He sent them to the editor, who cut the rings to study them.² The journal’s editor added that they were registered as Nos. 1, 2 and 3 of Appendix A in the epigraphical report for 1945–46.²⁴³ See Gudivada (Sarvasiddhi).

Grant No. 1, year 18

The first set has three thick plates without rims, held on a copper ring.² Its seal, partly broken, shows a crescent above the legend Sri-Sarvasiddhi in Eastern Chalukya letters.² The script is the early Telugu-Kannada type that the editor called the Vengi script, close to that of other early Eastern Chalukya grants.² The language is Sanskrit prose, with two verses at the end, and the date is written with numerical symbols.²

The king, Prithivi-Jayasimha-Vallabha, son of Vishnuvardhana and grandson of Kirtivarman, issued the grant from his residence at Kallura.²⁵ He addressed it to the householders of the Plakki district.²⁵

On the day of a lunar eclipse he gave the western portion of the village of Adivasa as a tax-free agrahara (village granted to Brahmins), together with some fields of Kulivataka.²¹ The donees were two brothers, Vinayasarman and Vishnusarman of the Maudgalya gotra (clan), students of the Kauthuma branch of the Samaveda.²¹ The executor (ajnapti) was Paramesvaravarman.²¹

The journal’s editor read a difficult passage differently.²⁴ In his reading, a hamlet of Adivasa called Punnagapadra was settled, and part of Kulivataka was added to it.²⁴ This new western division of Adivasa was the land given.²⁴

Grant No. 2

The second set also has three rimless plates, with a seal showing a crescent, the legend Sri-Sarvasiddhi and a lotus.⁴ It was issued from Asanapura to the elders and officers of the Plakki district and the ryots (cultivators) of the village of Kunduru.⁴⁶

In Somasekhara Sarma’s reading, the king made a dwelling place at Kudivada.⁴⁶ In this reading he also gave thirty-two nivartanas (a land measure) of land, cut off from Kunduru, as a separate agrahara.⁴⁶ The donees were two brothers of the Vatsa gotra, Svamiyasas and Vishnuyasas.⁴⁶ They are described as learned in the Vedas, the Itihasa, the Puranas and the Mimamsa, and as performers of the Agnishtoma.⁴⁶

The brothers in turn gave a ninth share to their sister’s son Vishnusarman.⁶ The executor was Bhimasarman, a devotee of Vishnu and performer of the Vajapeya, who was not known from other grants of the king.⁶ The journal’s editor understood the passage to mean that the village itself was made an agrahara, with thirty-two nivartanas added from Kunduru.⁴

Grant No. 3

The third set has three rimless plates.³ Its seal shows only a spiral sign, and the letters are untidy and irregular.³ It repeats the second grant.³ From Asanapura, the king gives the village of Kudivada to the same two brothers, separated from Kunduru.³

This time the grant adds the boundaries:³

• Kunduru on the east³
• the sea on the south³
• the Golava and Naguvula tanks and other features on the west³
• Avakattu on the north³

The executor is again Bhimasarman.³

The places

Somasekhara Sarma could not identify Kallura, Adivasa, Kunduru or Asanapura.⁷⁶ He identified Kulivataka with Gudivada itself.⁷⁶ In the second and third grants it is called Kudivada and Kudivata.⁷⁶

The Plakki district of these grants is also named in a Vishnukundin grant and in two grants of Vishnuvardhana I.⁷⁵ Somasekhara Sarma argued that it covered at least the adjoining parts of the Sarvasiddhi and Anakapalli taluks.⁷⁵

J. F. Fleet had tentatively identified Cherupuru with Chipurupalli town.⁷⁵ On this basis Somasekhara Sarma rejected that identification.⁷⁵ Vishnuvardhana I had issued his Chipurupalle grant from Cherupuru.⁷⁵ Somasekhara Sarma proposed instead another Chipurupalli, in the Anakapalli taluk.⁷⁵ He suggested that both grants of Vishnuvardhana I from this coast were found in the Anakapalli–Sarvasiddhi area.⁷⁵

He also suggested that the Sarvasiddhi taluk took its name from Jayasimha I, whose surname it was.⁵ See the Chipurupalle plates and the Timmapuram plates.

He thought Asanapura must have been an important town, a centre of learning and culture.⁶ The donee’s grandfather in the Niduparu grant was a member of its ghatika (college).⁶ The donee of the Pulibumra grant had moved there from Kunduru in Karma-rashtra.⁶ His father had received that village from the Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman.⁶

The date and the chronology

The first grant is dated in the 18th regnal year, on the 15th day of the 8th fortnight of the Hemanta (winter) season.¹ It was the day of a lunar eclipse.¹ Somasekhara Sarma noted that this was the second grant of Jayasimha I dated by seasons and fortnights, after the Pulibumra grant.¹ He traced this custom back to the Prakrit grants of the Satavahanas and Ikshvakus.¹ He took the eclipse to fall on the full moon of Phalguna.¹

He started from the Kopparam plates of Pulakesin II, which Hultzsch and Sewell dated to 631, when Vishnuvardhana I was still heir-apparent.¹⁷ He listed the lunar eclipses in Sravana that could fall in Vishnuvardhana’s 18th year, the year of his Chipurupalle grant.¹⁷ He also listed those on the full moon of Phalguna that could fall in Jayasimha’s 18th year.¹⁷ Only one pair fitted, and it made Vishnuvardhana’s 18th year 641–42 and the date of this grant 12 February 659.¹⁷

From this he concluded that regnal years were counted as current, and that the starting point of Eastern Chalukya chronology was 624–25.⁷ He noted that B. V. Krishna Rao, by a different route, had reached the same starting year.⁷

These results differ from the reckoning used on this site. Fleet dated Jayasimha I’s reign 633–663.⁸⁹ He dated the eclipse in the Chipurupalle grant of Vishnuvardhana I’s 18th year to 632.⁸⁹ The journal’s editor added a note that this dating does not solve all the problems of Eastern Chalukya chronology, citing N. Venkataramanayya.⁷ See When did the kingdom begin?

Disagreements about the grants

Somasekhara Sarma read the three grants as a sequence.³ In his view, the second created Gudivada as a separate village.³ The first then gave the western part of Adivasa, with land from Gudivada, to two other brothers.³ The third compensated the Vatsa brothers by granting them land from Kunduru again.³

The journal’s editor disagreed.³ He pointed out that the village granted and the donees of the first two grants are different.³ He judged the third, from its later letter forms and its seal with only a spiral, to be a later altered copy of the second.³ It adds boundaries and leaves out the sister’s son’s share.³ So he suspected that the heirs of the donees forged it, to deprive that nephew’s successors of their share.³

Footnotes

1. Somasekhara Sarma, “Three Grants of Chalukya Jayasimha I” (1960), p. 130 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

2. M. Somasekhara Sarma, “Three Grants of Chalukya Jayasimha I”, Epigraphia Indica XXXI (1955–56, publ. 1960), p. 129 and editor’s notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹

3. Somasekhara Sarma, “Three Grants of Chalukya Jayasimha I” (1960), p. 136 and editor’s notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹

4. Somasekhara Sarma, “Three Grants of Chalukya Jayasimha I” (1960), p. 133 and editor’s notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

5. Somasekhara Sarma, “Three Grants of Chalukya Jayasimha I” (1960), p. 132 and note 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

6. Somasekhara Sarma, “Three Grants of Chalukya Jayasimha I” (1960), p. 134 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

7. Somasekhara Sarma, “Three Grants of Chalukya Jayasimha I” (1960), p. 131 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

8. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 97 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

9. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 96 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²