Kolanupaka inscription of Tondarasa

What it is

This Kannada inscription at Kolanupaka, the old Kollipake, is No. 50 (Ng. 48) in P. Sreenivasachar’s Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961).¹ There P. B. Desai summarised it in English.¹ It is dated in the reign of the Western Chalukya king Tribhuvanamalla Vikramaditya VI, in the thirteenth year of his Chalukya-Vikrama era, the year Vibhava, at the winter solstice. Desai worked the date out as 24 December 1088.¹

Contents

The record introduces the king’s feudatory, the mahamandalesvara (great provincial lord) Tondarasa Chola-maharaja of Kandur.¹ He is traced to the solar race and to the line of Karikala.¹ He is made lord of Kodur, first among towns, and named as ruler of the Kollipake seven-thousand province.¹ The record tells of a gift of land and other gifts by this chief and other officials to the god Uttaresvara. The gift was received by Ramesvara Pandita of the Kalamukha line.¹

A damaged, undated inscription at the same place, No. 48 (Ng. 46), introduces a chief with the same titles, ruling the same province.² He gave a gift to the god Vishnu.²

Interpretation

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry identified Tondarasa with Tondaya II, eldest son of the Kandur Choda Bhima II, who obtained Kandurunadu from Vikramaditya VI. He dated the record to 1089.³ He took it as evidence that Tondaya held power while his father was still alive, probably because of the father’s old age.³ See Tondaya II and the Kandur Chodas.

The record is one of a series that shows Kollipake as the seat of a province governed for the Chalukya kings by mahamandalesvaras. Its later governors included the Paramara prince Jagaddeva, in 1104.² See the Kolanupaka inscription of Jagaddeva and the Western Chalukyas of Kalyani.

Footnotes

1. Desai, Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961), p. 19, No. 50 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. P. B. Desai, introduction to P. Sreenivasachar, Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh Government Archaeological Series 3, 1961), p. 18, Nos. 47–48 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 65. ↩ ↩²