Malepadu plates of Punyakumara

By these copper plates, the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara granted fifty nivartanas of land in the fifth year of his reign.¹ They were the first record to reveal the family tree of the Telugu Cholas of Renandu.²³ Scholars have dated them very differently, from about 625 to about the end of the 8th century.³⁴⁵

Discovery

In 1904 J. Ramayya Pantulu brought a set of copper plates and several stone inscriptions to the Madras epigraphy department.⁶ He was the Deputy Collector in charge of the Jammalamadugu division of the Kadapa (then Cuddapah) district.⁶ The records were of “a family of kings whose existence was not known till then”.⁶

He reported that a man named Varadappa had found the plates “while digging foundations for a mutt at Mālēpāḍu”.⁶ (A mutt is a religious house.) Varadappa had kept them in a temple at Velpucharla, and there he gave them to Ramayya Pantulu.⁶ H. Krishna Sastri published them in Epigraphia Indica XI in 1912, and noted that they had been given to the Madras Museum.⁶

The plates and the seal

There are three plates, and the first and last are written on the inner side only.⁶ They are held by a ring whose ends are fixed in an oval seal.⁶ With the seal and ring, they weigh 93 tolas.⁶

V. Venkayya, and then Ramayya Pantulu, took the animal on the seal for a tiger.⁶⁷ Krishna Sastri noted “the profuse mane round its neck”, and thought it was more like a lion.⁶⁷ He compared it with lions on stones at Peddamudiyam and Muddanur, and on the Pallava cave temple at Siyamangalam.⁶⁷

Script and language

The letters belong to the southern class of alphabets.⁷ In Krishna Sastri’s judgement, they closely resemble those of the Ederu plates of the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya II (799–843).⁷ They also show features of an even earlier stage.⁷ The language is Sanskrit prose, with an opening verse in praise of Siva and two closing verses that curse anyone who breaks the grant.¹

Contents

After the opening prayer, the plates introduce “a king Nandivarman of the Kāśyapa-gōtra”, born in the family of Karikala.¹ They name his three sons, Simhavishnu, Sundarananda and Dhananjayavarman.¹ Dhananjayavarman’s son Mahendravikramavarman “acquired the title Chōḷa-Mahārāja”.¹ His sons were Gunamudita and Punyakumara.¹

Punyakumara was “otherwise known as Pōrmukharāma, Purushaśārdūla, Mārdavachitta, Madanavilāsa, etc.”¹ He made an announcement to “the inhabitants of his own dominion as well as those of Hiraṇya-rāshṭra”.¹ In the fifth year of his reign, on the full-moon day of Karttika, he had granted fifty nivartanas (a land measure) of land, free of taxes.¹

The land was in the village of Biraparu in Hiranyarashtra, “on the southern bank of the river Suprayōga”.¹ It went to Chiruvanahala-Kesavasarman of the Atreya-gotra.¹ The gift was made at the request of a chief whose name Krishna Sastri read as Kottikuldaraja.¹ H. K. Narasimhaswami later showed from the Dommara-Nandyala plates that the name should be read Kottikuntaraja.⁸

Where the land lay

Krishna Sastri found the Suprayoga named among the boundaries of Uruvupalli, near Kandukur, in the plates of the Pallava Vishnugopavarman.⁹ He concluded that Punyakumara’s rule “appears to have extended beyond Cuddapah, even into Nellore”.⁹

K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya (1956) read the village’s name as Biriparu.¹⁰ They identified the Suprayoga with the Penner, and Hiranyarashtra with the country round Kamalapuram and Kadapa.¹⁰ Stone records at Malepadu also mention Biriparu, and they thought it was perhaps Malepadu itself.¹⁰ They observed that both names refer to jasmine.¹⁰

Date

• H. Krishna Sastri (1912): about the end of the 8th century, from the letters and from about a century for five generations after Nandivarman³
• Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya (1956): Punyakumara about 625, on the strength of his stone records and the Pallava names in the family; they rejected Krishna Sastri’s date⁴
• Narasimhaswami (1956): the middle of the 8th century, comparing these plates and the Dommara-Nandyala plates with the Kendur and Vakkaleri plates of the Chalukya Kirtivarman II⁵

Significance

These plates were the first record to reveal the family tree of the Telugu Cholas of Renandu.²³ Krishna Sastri used them to argue that the family took names and titles from the Pallava kings of the Simhavishnu line.²³ See Punyakumara, the Dommara-Nandyala plates and the Telugu Cholas of Renadu.

Footnotes

1. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 339 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

2. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 341 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 344 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 251 and note 4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

5. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 270 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

6. H. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates of Punyakumara; the Fifth Year”, Epigraphia Indica XI (1912), p. 337 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

7. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 338 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

8. H. K. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates of Punyakumara; 10th Year”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 269 and note (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

9. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 342 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

10. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 235 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴