Kaluchumbarru grant of Amma II

This charter is the record of a royal gift to a Jain institution in the Eastern Chalukya kingdom.¹² A courtesan of a family long in the dynasty’s service had the gift made.¹² The gift fed and repaired the dining-hall of a Jain temple.¹² The charter also preserves an unusual list of the enemies overthrown by Amma II’s father, Chalukya-Bhima II.³⁴

The plates

J. F. Fleet edited the grant in 1902–03 from the original plates.⁵ They had belonged to Sir Walter Elliot and were by then in the British Museum.⁵ “There is no information as to where they were obtained.”⁵ The name Kaluchumbarru therefore comes from the village granted, not from a findspot. Fleet had first seen the plates in 1877 or 1878, and had already used the record in his papers on Eastern Chalukya chronology.⁵⁶

There are five plates, each about 8¼ by 4³⁄₁₆ inches.⁵⁶ The first is inscribed on one side only, and the others on both sides.⁵⁶ The edges, except on the last, were raised into rims to protect the writing.⁵⁶ The ring has been cut.⁵⁶

The ring’s circular seal, about 3 inches across, carries in relief a boar standing to the right and the legend Sri-Tribhuvanankusah.⁵⁶ It also shows an elephant-goad with the sun and moon above, and a floral device below.⁵⁶ Fleet explained the legend as “a motto of the kings of the dynasty” meaning “the glorious elephant-goad of the three worlds”.⁵⁶ Apart from a few worn letters on the last plate, the text is “in a state of very excellent preservation”.⁶

Language and script

The language is Sanskrit throughout, with two exceptions.⁶ There is a Telugu passage in lines 73–74, translated for Fleet by E. Hultzsch.⁶ There are also a few Telugu words in lines 65–66.⁶

The characters are of the southern class, and of the regular type of their place and period.⁶ Fleet noted a peculiar form of the initial i, which he thought “plainly intended”, not a mistake.⁶ The record spells the family name Chālukya, with a long first vowel, in prose, and Chalukya, with a short one, in verse.⁷

It contains seventeen ordinary verses and two of the usual benedictive and imprecatory verses (blessings and curses).¹ One more verse names the officer who conveyed the grant (ajnapti), the writer and the composer.¹

The genealogy

The record traces the line from “the victorious Kubja-Vishnu” down to Amma II.⁸ It compares Kubja-Vishnu with the dwarf incarnation of Vishnu.⁸ Of Vijayaditya III it says that he was “a veritable champion”.⁸ It says that “great honour was paid by the Vallabha king” to his arm, and that he enjoyed the earth for 44 years.⁸

Fleet admitted that when he first used the record he had misread it as also giving a reign of 48 years.⁸⁷ The true reading has only 44.⁸⁷ The record says that Vikramaditya II reigned nine months, where other records give eleven months or a year.³ Its prose calls Yuddhamalla II “born from an elder brother of king Talapa”.³ Fleet judged this “certainly wrong”, since all other records make him Talapa’s son.³

In Fleet’s translation, Chalukya-Bhima II guarded the world for twelve years.⁴ He did so “having unaided, indeed, slain the glorious Rajamayya, and Dhalaga …, and the fierce Tatabikki, and Bijja …, and the excessively powerful Ayyapa”.⁴ He had also slain “the extremely great army sent by king Govinda, and Lovabikki the ruler of the Cholas, and the valorous Yuddhamalla”.⁴

Fleet identified Govinda with the Rashtrakuta king Govinda IV, and Yuddhamalla with the Eastern Chalukya Yuddhamalla II.³² He suggested that Ayyapa was a Nolamba prince and Bijja the Dantivarman of the Sudi plates.³² He knew nothing more of Lovabikki or of Dhalaga and Tatabikki.³²

The grant

The king, “the glorious Vijayaditya-(Amma II.)”, Maharajadhiraja, Paramesvara and Paramabhattaraka, addresses the headmen and cultivators of the Attilinandu district.⁴⁹

The grant names the Addakali gachchha of the Valahari gana.⁹ It then introduces Chamekamba of the Pattavardhika lineage, “which belongs to the retinue of the lineage of the glorious royal Chalukyas”.⁹ She was a lay disciple (sravaki) devoted to “the religion of Jina”.⁹ Her teacher’s line ran from the saint Sakalachandrasiddhanta to his disciple Ayyapoti, and then to Ayyapoti’s disciple Arhanandin.⁹

The grant was made “While king Amma (II.), the high lord of Vengi, is reigning”.⁹ Chamekamba “has, with great pleasure, caused to be given the excellent village of Kaluchumbarru”.⁹ The gift was “for the purposes of the renowned dining-hall of the holy and famous Jain temple called Sarvalokasraya-Jinabhavana”.⁹ It was made on the winter solstice, free of all taxes, “for the purpose of the restoration of whatever may be broken or torn”.⁹

Fleet summarised it as a grant to Arhanandin “for the purpose of providing for repairs to the charitable dining-hall” of the temple.¹ The office of village headman (gramakuta) was given in perpetuity to Kusumayudha, son of Kattalamba.⁹ The composer of the verses was the poet Kavichakravarti.⁹ The closing Telugu passage records a present that Arhanandin himself made to the writer of the record.¹

Chamekamba

Fleet thought line 53 clearly marks Chamekamba as a courtesan.²⁹ It calls her “the lustre of a sun to the water-lilies … which are the faces of courtesans”.²⁹ He concluded that “she was a favourite mistress of the king”.²⁹ He compared Vinapoti, mistress of the Western Chalukya king Vijayaditya, who made grants to a temple at Mahakuta.²⁹

He linked her family to the Pattavardhini race of the Ederu plates of Amma I.² The ancestor of that family, Kalakampa, had served Kubja-Vishnuvardhana.²

The places

Fleet located the grant through the Attilinandu district, which “evidently took its appellation from a town named Attili”.¹ In 1902 Attili was in the Tanuku taluk of Godavari district, seven miles “south-west-half-west” from Tanuku.¹

He identified Kaluchumbarru, also called Pedda-Kaluchuvubarru in the record, with the village shown as “Kunsamurroo” on the Indian Atlas sheet.¹ This village is about three miles south-by-west of Attili.¹ He also identified three of its four boundary villages on the same sheet.¹ He had at first read the district’s name as Mattilinandu, before he knew that the modern Attili existed.¹

Date

The grant is not dated.¹ Fleet placed it in the reign of Amma II.¹ Amma II, he wrote, “we know, from other sources”, was crowned on Friday, 5 December 945 and reigned for twenty-five years.¹

Footnotes

1. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 179 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶

2. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 182 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

3. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 181 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

4. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 190, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. J. F. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant of Vijayaditya-Amma II”, Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 177 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

6. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 178 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

7. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 180 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 189, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

9. Fleet, “Kaluchumbarru Grant” (1903), p. 191, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵