Kanuma grant of Sadasiva (1548)

The plates and the seal

S. V. Viswanatha edited the grant in the fourteenth volume of Epigraphia Indica.¹ He wrote that “The inscription is on five copper-plates, which are bored at the top so as to admit a ring holding the plates together.”¹ The plates “are in good preservation”. “They are now in the possession of the Collector of Anantapur.”¹

H. Krishna Sastri had noticed them in his report on epigraphy for 1915.¹ The first and last plates are inscribed on one side only, and there are 241 lines in all.¹

The office of the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy described the ring and seal.¹ The seal “bears on a countersunk surface the following, which are the prevailing features of all Vijayanagara seals”.¹ It shows the crescent and the sun at the top.¹ It also shows a boar standing on a platform, facing right, with a dagger in front of it.¹ At the bottom is a floral device, probably a lotus.¹ The plates, ring and seal together weigh about 431 tolas.¹

“The language of the inscription is Sanskrit, and the whole is in verse”.¹ The exceptions are “the Telugu portions in plates Nos. 3, 4 and 5, which give the distinguishing marks of the boundaries and the signature”.¹ “The characters are Nandinagari, except in the case of the signature, which is in Telugu.”¹

The grant

According to Viswanatha, the inscription “records the grant of the village of Kanuma by Sadasiva-Maharaya of the Second Vijayanagara dynasty”.¹ The donees were “several learned Brahmans of various gotras and sakhas” (clans and Vedic schools).¹ The grant was made at the request of Appalaraja, the son of Krishnaraya and grandson of Timmaraja.¹ Appalaraja was “of the Kasyapanvaya, i.e. the Solar race”.¹

The gift was made in the presence of the god Vitthalesvara, on the banks of the Tungabhadra river.¹ Kanuma, the record says, is in Mundimadugu sima (district), a division of Gutti valita (province).¹ Half the village went to the god Chennakesava.¹ The other half was divided into thirty shares for Brahmans, and two of these shares were set apart for the daily worship of the god.¹

V. Rangacharya listed the plates in 1919 as “C.P. No. 9 of 1915”.² He gives the date as Saka 1470 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years), Kilaka, Ashadha, bright fortnight 12, Sunday.² He notes that Mundimadugu is in the Anantapur taluk.² See Gooty.

Date and persons

The date is given in words.³ Viswanatha wrote: “Thus the record is dated in the Saka year 1470, corresponding to 1548 A.D.”³

He added that “The Saka year 1470 is the earliest date for Sadasiva that can be fixed from the copper-plate inscriptions known so far”.³ But “the earliest stone inscription of his time that has been examined is dated in the Saka year 1467”.³ He concluded: “Thus the grant is of importance, as it is the earliest of the copper-plate grants of Sadasiva yet discovered.”³

He wrote that “Among the names of personages appearing in the grant the most important is that of Ramaraja, the Karnata minister and brother-in-law of the king”.³ Of Sadasiva’s titles, he singled out Gaj-angha-ganda-bherunda.³ The title refers to the two-headed mythological bird shown carrying elephants in its talons and beaks.³ See Aliya Rama Raya and Vijayanagara.

Footnotes

1. S. V. Viswanatha, “The Kanuma Grant of Sadasiva-Raya: Saka 1470”, Epigraphia Indica XIV (1917–18), p. 341 (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 ↩²²

2. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. I (1919), p. 5, Anantapur No. 28 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Viswanatha, “The Kanuma Grant of Sadasiva-Raya”, Epigraphia Indica XIV (1917–18), p. 342 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸