Nadagam plates of Vajrahasta

By these copper plates, the Ganga king Vajrahasta, lord of the Three Kalingas, made a grant to Pangu-Samaya in Saka 979 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years).¹² They give the time of Vajrahasta’s anointing (coronation) in Saka 960, which Ramamurti calculated as 3 May 1038.¹ Ramamurti also used them to argue that Kalinganagara, the Ganga residence, was at Mukhalingam.³⁴⁵

Discovery

G. V. Ramamurti edited the plates in Epigraphia Indica IV (1896–97).⁶ He reported that a cultivator, Sanku Appanna, had found them about two years earlier while working in his field.⁶ The place was Nadagam, a village in the Narasannapeta taluk (sub-district) of the Ganjam district.⁶

The villagers believed that the plates had belonged to some Jangams, a Saiva sect.⁶ The Jangams had lived in the area until fifty years before.⁶ Ramamurti sent the plates through the Collector to E. Hultzsch.⁶ The owner was reported to be willing to have them kept in the Madras Museum.⁶ See Nadagam.

The plates and the seal

There are five plates.⁶⁷ The first is written on the inner side only, and the next three on both faces.⁶⁷ The last is blank, and it protects the writing on the back of the fourth.⁶⁷

The ring had not been cut.⁶⁷ It is soldered into “a thick circular seal, on which is fixed an image of a bull couchant” (lying down).⁶⁷ On one side of the bull are a conch-shell and a chauri (fly-whisk), and on the other a sword and an elephant-goad.⁶⁷ There is a crescent in front, and what looks like a drum at the back.⁶⁷ Ramamurti noted that almost all these figures appear on the seals of other grants of the Ganga kings, “who were worshippers of Siva”.⁶⁷

Script and language

The alphabet “belongs to the old Nagari type without any admixture of other kinds of characters”.⁷ Ramamurti thought that this type was in use in Kalinga at the time.⁷ He had found stone inscriptions at Mukhalingam in almost the same characters.⁷ But he added that “the Eastern Chalukya type of the eleventh century is however more extensively in evidence here, as everywhere else in the Telugu country”.⁷

The engraver was careless.⁷ Three lines at the end had been partly rubbed out and engraved over.⁷ The language is Sanskrit throughout, and nearly half of it is in verse.⁷

The grant

The record is issued from Kalinganagara by Vajrahasta, a prince of the Ganga family.¹² He is styled Paramamahesvara, Paramabhattaraka, Maharajadhiraja and Trikalingadhipati, lord of the Three Kalingas.¹² The grant forms twelve villages of the district of Erada into a separate district.¹² The new district is named after its chief village, Velpura.¹² It is granted to Pangu-Samaya, son of Srikantha-Nayaka and Vedavi.¹²

The half-erased lines show how the donee was related to the king.¹ There Samaya is called “my son-in-law, the Dandanayaka S[a]maya”.¹ The sentence engraved in their place adds a village in the district of Keluvartani.¹

The grant is dated Saka 979, on Sunday, the twelfth tithi (lunar day) of the bright fortnight of Phalguna.¹ Ramamurti equated this with 4 March 1058.¹ He noted that the day, called Govinda-dvadasi, was an occasion for gifts of land and money.¹ Robert Sewell gave the date as 8 February 1058 instead.⁸

The coronation date and the genealogy

The plates also give the time of Vajrahasta’s anointing, in Saka 960.¹ Ramamurti calculated this as 3 May 1038.¹ He called it “a certain, reliable land-mark in the chronology of the Gangas” and “the earliest known date of this dynasty”.¹

Their list of kings gives the length of each reign.⁹² It begins with an earlier Vajrahasta, who reigned forty-four years.⁹² He did so after uniting “that whole earth which had been formerly divided into five (parts) and enjoyed by five kings”.⁹² The list runs through his sons and descendants to the donor.⁹²

Ramamurti compared it with the much longer list in a grant of Anantavarman Chodaganga of Saka 1040.³ He found differences “which render the authenticity of the second list suspicious”.³ V. Rangacharya noted that the donor is Vajrahasta III in one numbering and Vajrahasta V in the other.¹⁰ See Vajrahasta III.

Kalinganagara and Mukhalingam

Ramamurti used the occasion to argue about Kalinganagara, the residence named in all the Ganga copper plates.³⁴⁵ He argued that it was not the seaport Kalingapatnam, where he found no remains of the kind expected of a capital.³⁴⁵ In his view, it was the site of the villages of Mukhalingam and Nagarakatakam on the Vamsadhara.³⁴⁵

He reported that Sanskrit and Telugu inscriptions there describe the god Madhukesvara as the god of Nagara, the “Nagara of the Kalinga (country)”.³⁴⁵ The temples of Madhukesvara and Aniyankabhimesvara bear names that match the grant of Saka 1040.³⁴⁵ They also match the second name of the king, Vajrahasta Aniyankabhima.³⁴⁵

He concluded that the site and the ruins between the two villages “represents the ancient capital of Kalinga”.³⁴⁵ See Mukhalingam and the temples of Mukhalingam.

Footnotes

1. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta” (1897), p. 185 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶

2. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta” (1897), p. 193, translation, lines 30–57 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta” (1897), p. 187 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

4. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta” (1897), p. 188 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

5. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta” (1897), p. 189 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

6. G. V. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta; Saka-Samvat 979”, Epigraphia Indica IV (1896–97), p. 183 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

7. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta” (1897), p. 184 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

8. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 75 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

9. Ramamurti, “Nadagam Plates of Vajrahasta” (1897), p. 192, translation, verse 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

10. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. I (1919), p. 684, Ganjam No. 143-A (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩