Nayanapalle inscription of Ganapatideva

The stone

The inscription is on a stone built into the back wall of the Chennakesava temple at Nayanapalle.¹ The village is about three miles from Motupalli, in the Bapatla taluk of the Guntur district.¹ The stone was set into the wall sideways when the temple was renovated, and the top and bottom of the writing were chiselled away.¹ The middle is badly worn, and the end may be on the hidden face.¹

It is in Telugu prose, in letters of the 13th century, and carries no date.¹

Contents

As far as it can be read, the record says that king Ganapatideva-Maharaja did these things on a victorious campaign to the south:¹

• killed Bayyana and Tikkana, who had burnt Nellore¹
• went on into Dravida-mandala and won over Kulottunga-Rajendra-Choda¹
• received presents of elephants from the ruler of Nellore¹
• built a matha (monastery) called Bhringi-matha at Sriparvata (Srisailam)¹
• consecrated a god at Chaitrapura, that is Motupalli¹

The lost ending probably recorded a grant of land at Nayanapalle to the god whom Ganapati had set up at Motupalli.¹

The restoration of Nellore

The editor, V. Venkatasubba Ayyar (1956), connected the record with Telugu literary works.² These works tell that Manmasiddhi, the ruler of Nellore, had been driven out by his kinsmen Akkana and Bayyana.² In them, the poet Tikkana begged Ganapati to restore Manmasiddhi.² They say that Ganapati defeated the kinsmen, crowned Manmasiddhi at Nellore and stayed some months to instruct him.²

Venkatasubba Ayyar took the inscription’s Tikkana to be the Akkana of the literary sources.² He took the unnamed ruler of Nellore to be Manumasiddhi II, Tikkana’s patron.² Parabrahma Sastry, a modern historian, followed this reading and made Bayyana and Tikkana palace officers of Nellore.³

Which Rajendra-Choda?

Venkatasubba Ayyar identified Kulottunga-Rajendra-Choda with the Chola emperor Rajendra III.²⁴ He argued that Ganapati made friends with him without fighting.²⁴ He dated the campaign about 1249, when Ganapati’s general Samanta Bhoja is found at Kanchi.²⁴

N. Venkataramanayya had instead identified the king with a Velanadu chief of that name, but Venkatasubba Ayyar rejected that view.¹ See Ganapatideva, the Kakatiyas and the Telugu Chodas of Pottapi and Nellore.

Footnotes

1. V. Venkatasubba Ayyar, “Nayanapalle Inscription of Ganapatideva”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 193 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. Venkatasubba Ayyar, “Nayanapalle Inscription” (1956), p. 194 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 113. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

4. Venkatasubba Ayyar, “Nayanapalle Inscription” (1956), p. 195 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³