Masulipatam (?) plates of Vijayaditya III

This was the only grant then known of Gunaga-Vijayaditya III himself.¹² It touches on the most famous event of his reign, the killing of a king called Mangi.¹² Its ajnapti, the officer who conveyed the grant, was Pandaranga.²³ He was the general whose deeds are praised in the Telugu verse of the Addanki inscription.²³

Where the plates came from

F. Kielhorn wrote in 1899 that “there is no definite information as to where these plates were found, or what became of them”.⁴ Judging from their size, he thought they might be a grant listed in a memorandum of Sir Walter Elliot.⁴ The entry reads “Inscription on 5 plates, received from Mr. Porter, Collector of Masulipatam, 19th December 1846”, with a boar seal and the legend Tribhuvanankusa.⁴

Hence the question mark in his title. Kielhorn edited the text from Elliot’s own impressions, sent to him by J. F. Fleet.⁴ Fleet, in 1891, had listed it as “a grant from an unknown locality; not yet published”.¹

Description

There appear to be five plates, the first and last written on one side only.⁴ Each is about 9½ inches broad and 3⅝ inches high, with a ring-hole on the right side.⁴ Kielhorn judged that the writing on the original plates was well preserved, but many letters in the impressions were blocked with hard rust that had not been cleaned out.⁴

The writing is “well done, and carefully engraved”.⁴ It is of the southern class, and Kielhorn noted that the letters b and j are open on the left throughout.⁴ The language is Sanskrit.²

Content

According to Kielhorn’s abstract, the grant opens with the king’s grandfather Vijayaditya II, “a fire of destruction to the Ganga family”.⁵³ He was named Chaluky-Arjuna because he broke the frenzy of the Kali age.⁵³ The grant then praises his son, the Maharaja Vishnuvardhana, and that king’s son, the Maharaja Vijayaditya.⁵³

Vijayaditya speaks to the cultivators of the Gudravara district (vishaya).³ On an eclipse of the moon he gives the village of Tranda[pa?]ru, free of all taxes, to Vinayadisarman.³ Vinayadisarman was a householder of the Taittiriya school, son of Damodarasarman and grandson of Turkasarman of Urputuru.³

A verse then explains the gift.³ In Kielhorn’s translation, the king killed Mangi on the battlefield.³ Mangi “had defeated the whole host of hostile chiefs and in the excess of his fury had ridiculed the king’s liberality, bravery and power”.³ Then the king “was well pleased with the marvellous advice of this best one of the twice-born”.³

The village had these boundaries:³

• Angaluru on the east and south³
• Velpuru on the west³
• Chavi[ta?]paru on the north³

Kielhorn could identify none of the places.³²

The ajnapti was Pandaranga, compared for his courage in war to Bibhatsu (Arjuna).³ The order was written “by the foremost of goldsmiths, Katta[y]a”, son of Madhava.³ Kielhorn noted that Pandaranga’s grandson appears as ajnapti of a grant of Chalukya-Bhima I, the Bezwada plates.²

Who was rewarded, and for what?

The two editors read the donee’s part differently. Fleet summarised the grant in 1891.¹ He took Vinayadisarman to be “either the actual slayer of Mangi, or the leader of the troops on the occasion of his being slain”.¹ Kielhorn, editing the full text, read the gift as “apparently” a reward for advice in the matter of the defeat of Mangi.²

Who Mangi was is not stated. Fleet suggested he may have been a Chola king.⁶¹ His reason was that a Pithapuram inscription of Saka 1124 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years) calls him Mangi-Rajendra and says that Vijayaditya “played the game of ball with his head”.⁶¹ In other grants Vijayaditya burnt the city of a Krishna.⁶¹ Fleet identified this Krishna with the Rashtrakuta king Krishna II.⁶¹

Date

The grant is not dated.² Kielhorn headed it with Fleet’s dates for the reign, 844–888.⁴ Fleet noted that the records give Vijayaditya III a reign of 44 years.⁶

Footnotes

1. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 103 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions” (1899), p. 123 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions” (1899), p. 126 (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

4. F. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions”, Epigraphia Indica V (1898–99), p. 122 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

5. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions” (1899), p. 125, abstract of contents (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 102 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵