Mellacheruvu inscription of Prataparudra's reign

The stone

The inscription is cut on a stone slab in the Svayambhudeva temple at Mellacheruvu, in the Huzurnagar taluk of the old Nalgonda district.¹ P. Sreenivasachar edited it in 1940 as No. 26 of his Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts, with a plate.¹ It is a short record in Telugu prose.²

Contents

The record is dated Saka 1233 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years), the year Virodhikrit, on the first day of the bright half of Magha, a Monday.² At that time the Kakatiya king Prataparudra, mahamandaleshvara (great provincial lord), was ruling the earth.²

Mamdu Nagi-Radi Bollaya-reddi held the nayamkara (villages held in return for military service, explained below) of Bomiraju Erraya-pregada.²¹ On his authority, the Velamas and all the people of the village poured the gift-water before the god.²¹ They made the gift for the worship of the mulasthana (main shrine) god, Svayambhudeva of Mellacheruvu.²¹

The gift had several parts. The Brahmins received thirteen shares (marturus) of wet land, measured with the pedda-gadyamu.²¹

There was also a contribution of one chinnamu for each putti of grain sown on the land of the village in all four directions.² This covered black soil and white, including the king’s own land (racha-polamu).² Wet land ploughed and sown in the two seasons of Karttika and Vaishakha paid one chinnamu for each marturu.²

The rest of the people made yearly gifts:³¹

• the merchants (komatis), one mada³¹
• the weavers, sixteen sinnas³¹
• the shepherds, fourteen sinnas³¹

Sreenivasachar compared these yearly levies to a professional tax.¹ He dated the record to Monday, 10 January 1312.⁴

Significance

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry cited the record in his discussion of land ownership.⁵ He noted that it refers to a levy due from all kinds of land around the village, including the government land called racha-polamu.⁵ He took this as a sign that the land of a village ultimately belonged to the king.⁵

The record is also an example of the nayamkara system.⁶² In Parabrahma Sastry’s account, under this system the Kakatiya kings from Rudramadevi onward assigned villages to nayakas (military chiefs) in place of a salary.⁶² In return the nayakas kept troops for the king’s service.⁶² For the reign, see Prataparudra.

Editions

The text and translation are in Sreenivasachar’s Corpus, Part II (1940), pp. 88–90, with the date on p. 179 and the list entry on p. 190.¹⁴

Footnotes

1. P. Sreenivasachar (ed.), A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts, Part II (1940), p. 190, list of inscriptions, No. 26 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

2. Sreenivasachar, Corpus, Part II (1940), p. 89, translation, lines 1–23 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased; the terms are those of the inscription. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

3. Sreenivasachar, Corpus, Part II (1940), p. 90, translation, lines 23–37 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Sreenivasachar, Corpus, Part II (1940), p. 179, appendix of dates, No. 17 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

5. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 200. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 195. ↩ ↩² ↩³