Myakadoni inscription of Pulumavi

The Myakadoni inscription is a short private record of the reign of a Satavahana king Pulumavi.¹ It was found in the Adoni taluk (sub-district) of what was then Bellary district.¹ Its editor, V. S. Sukthankar, called the site “an important landmark, fixing definitely a point south of the Krishna to which the sway of the Satavahanas extended”.² It also names a district and two of the officers who held land in it.² See Vasishthiputra Pulumavi and Satavahanas.

Discovery and the stone

T. Rajarao found the inscription while touring the Adoni taluk.¹ He was the Kanarese assistant in the office of the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy, Southern Circle.¹ Estampages (ink copies on paper) were made under the supervision of H. Krishna Sastri.¹

The inscription is cut on the eastern face of a large natural boulder of reddish granite.¹ The boulder is known to the villagers as Jangli Gundu, “jungle stone”.¹ It is firmly buried in the soil midway between the villages of Myakadoni and Chinnakadaburu, about eight miles due north of Adoni.¹

The surface has peeled in places, sometimes down to the depth of the letters.¹ The four lines cover an area of about 8 feet by 3 feet.¹ The letters are about 2½ inches high, cut boldly but not deeply.¹

The words are separated by small gaps, which made the record easier to read.¹ H. Krishna Sastri later compared this spacing of words with the Kodavali inscription of Chandasati and the Hathigumpha inscription.³

Text

Sukthankar edited the record from the stone and from impressions. In his translation it reads:

Success! On the first day of the first (fortnight of) the second month of Winter in the eighth year (of the reign) of Siri-Pulumavi, King of the Satavahana (family), the reservoir was sunk by the householder (gahapatika) … resident in the village (of) Vepuraka, belonging to the Captain (gumika) Kumaradatta, in the country (janapada) of Satavahani-hara, belonging to the Great General (mahasenapati) Khamdanaka (Skandanaga).²

The householder’s own name and description are uncertain.² Sukthankar thought the damaged words were probably a tribal name and a personal name.²

Sukthankar could find no reservoir near the rock.⁴ He noted, though, that the soil around it was alluvial (laid down by water) and might once have been the bed of a tank.⁴

The king

The king is called only “Siri-Pulumavi” and “King of the Satavahanas”.⁴ He is named without the metronymic (a name taken from the mother) usual for Satavahana kings.⁴ Sukthankar noted that the family name Satavahana is rare in inscriptions.⁴

At least four kings named Pulumavi were then known.⁴ Sukthankar relied on Vincent Smith’s list of these kings.⁴ That list gave the two later Pulumavis only about seven years each, too few for a record of the eighth year.⁴

Sukthankar therefore identified the king with Vasishthiputra Pulumavi, the “Siro Polemaios” of Ptolemy.⁴ He admitted, though, that the identification was precarious (uncertain).⁴ On the script, he found the letters close to those of the Jaggayyapeta inscription of Purisadata (Purushadatta).¹ He saw no reason why they could not be earlier than the 3rd century.¹ Sukthankar does not name Purisadata’s dynasty.¹ D. C. Sircar (1939) places this king, Virapurisadata, on the Ikshvaku throne and lists his inscriptions at Jaggayyapeta.⁵

Robert Sewell accepted the identification with Pulumavi II and dated the record 145–46 CE.⁶ He took it to prove Andhra rule in that tract at that time.⁶

D. C. Sircar listed it among the “Later Satavahana” inscriptions of the region.⁷ He also noted that the king named in it is generally placed after Yajna Sri, which would make him a later Pulumavi.⁸

Satavahani-hara

Sukthankar took hara here to mean a district or kingdom.² He identified Satavahani-hara with the Satahani-rattha named in the Hira-Hadagalli copper plates of the Pallava king Sivaskandavarman.⁴ Those plates were also found in Bellary district.⁴ If the two were the same, he argued, the district must have covered much of the modern Bellary district.⁴²

He suggested that the great general and the captain named in the record held their lands somewhat like jagirs (land grants).²

Before this find, the Bellary gazetteer of 1904 could cite only an inscription and a coin from neighbouring parts of Mysore as evidence for Andhra rule in the district.⁹

Editions

• V. S. Sukthankar, “A New Andhra Inscription of Siri-Pulumavi”, Epigraphia Indica XIV (1917–18), pp. 153–155, with plate.¹

Footnotes

1. V. S. Sukthankar, “A New Andhra Inscription of Siri-Pulumavi”, Epigraphia Indica XIV (1918), p. 153 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶

2. Sukthankar, “A New Andhra Inscription of Siri-Pulumavi” (1918), p. 155, text, translation and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

3. H. Krishna Sastri, “The Kodavali Rock-Inscription of Chandasati”, Epigraphia Indica XVIII (1926), p. 318, n. 4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

4. Sukthankar, “A New Andhra Inscription of Siri-Pulumavi” (1918), p. 154 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

5. D. C. Sircar, The Successors of the Satavahanas in Lower Deccan (1939), p. 22 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

6. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 14 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

7. Sircar, “Two Inscriptions from Guntur District” (1959), p. 86 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. D. C. Sircar, “Two Inscriptions from Guntur District”, Epigraphia Indica XXXII (1959), p. 83 and n. 9 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

9. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Bellary (1904), p. 27 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩