Raghudevapuram and Dorapalem grants of Raghudeva (1455–56)

Raghudeva was a nephew of the Gajapati king Kapilendra.¹² He governed the province of Rajahmundry at least from 1455–56 to 1460.³ These two copper-plate charters record his gifts of villages on the Godavari to Brahmins.⁴⁵

Discovery

D. C. Sircar found the two charters at Rajahmundry in January 1956.⁶ One was a set of plates in the collection of the Andhra Historical Research Society, whose secretary was preparing to publish it.⁶ The other was a single plate, written on both sides, which belonged to a resident of the town.⁶ It turned out to be the middle part of a second charter of the same donor.⁶ Sircar published both in Epigraphia Indica XXXIII, the volume for 1959–60, with photographs of the plates.⁶⁷

The Raghudevapura grant

The set has six plates, and five of them are written on both sides.⁸ Together they carry 149 lines of writing.⁸ The ring passes through a seal that shows a standing elephant in decorated trappings.⁸ The script is Telugu and the language Sanskrit, almost all in verse.⁸

At the end of the record is a line drawing, of the kind found on other Suryavamsi Gajapati charters.⁸ Sircar took it to show a sword or dagger, standing for the donor’s signature.⁸ The date is the twelfth day of the bright half of the month Suchi, in the year Dhatri, Saka 1378 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years).⁸ Sircar equated it with 18 June 1456.⁸

The first section opens with verses to Vishnu as the Boar, to Ganesa, to the Earth and to Vishnu.¹² It then introduces the donor’s family:¹²

• A Nayaka named Kapilesvara, one of many rulers of the solar and lunar races, had a son Jagesvara, rich in elephants.¹²
• Jagesvara and his eldest son Balarama died in battle.¹²
• The next son, Kapilesvara, named after his grandfather, won the throne of the Gajapati by his bravery.¹²
• His younger brother Parasurama married Malliki, and their son Raghudeva is the donor.¹²

The grant says that Raghudeva had his seat at Rajamahendranagara (Rajahmundry).² He ruled a province that stretched from Simhachalam to a place called Giripraja.² Sircar suggested that Giripraja was a Sanskrit form of the name Kondavidu.² See Kapilendra.

The closing verses tell how the grant came about.⁹ Raghudeva visited Kataka (Cuttack) in the service of his uncle.⁹ On the road he met a large number of Brahmins with their wives, and he heard their case.⁹ He then decided to found an agrahara (a village given to Brahmins) for them in his province.⁹

The grant divides the village into forty shares, though it names 42 donees.⁹ Most of them were Yajurveda Brahmins.⁹ Sircar noted that their names show that they came from the Andhra country.⁹

The gift village was once called Kriddevi, and it was renamed Raghudevapura.⁴ It lay on the Godavari, here called the Gautami, between its greater and lesser streams.⁴ Its boundaries mention the road to Muggullu, which Sircar placed about a mile south of the present Raghudevapuram.⁴ He placed it about 13 miles north-west of Rajahmundry.⁴ See Rajahmundry.

The Dorapalem grant

The single plate is the second of a set.⁵ It carries the central part of another charter of Raghudeva, in the same script and language.⁵ It is dated on a lunar eclipse in Saka 1376, the year Yuvan, which Sircar took to be 1455–56.⁵

It records a gift of the village of Dorapalem, on the bank of the Kaunteya-ganga, a stream of the Godavari.⁵ The gift went to a Brahmin named Timmaya or Tirumalu-bhatta of the Kausika gotra (clan).⁵ He was a reciter of the Puranas, and his grandfather had lived at Bhimavaram.⁵ The grant’s family tree adds a younger brother of Parasurama, Rama, who is missing from the Raghudevapura grant.⁵

Raghudeva

Sircar gathered the other records of Raghudeva.⁶ One is a pillar inscription of 1458 at the Sringararaya temple at Tirupati in the Peddapuram taluk (sub-district).⁶ It says that a temple officer restored the temple’s lands while Raghudeva-narendra-mahapatra was ruling at Rajahmundry under Kapilesvara.⁶ The other is the inscription of 2 February 1460 in the fort of Warangal.⁶

V. Rangacharya’s list of the Tirupati inscriptions also records an undated grant.¹⁰¹¹ It was made by “Raghudeva Mahendramahadeva of Rajahmundry (then under the rule of Kapilesvara Maharaya)”.¹⁰¹¹

From these records Sircar concluded that Raghudeva governed the province of Rajahmundry at least from 1455–56 to 1460.³ This was soon after Kapilendra had taken it from the Reddis.³ See the Warangal inscriptions, the Gajapatis and the Reddis of Rajahmundry.

Footnotes

1. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 5 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 11 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 20 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

6. D. C. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

7. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), plates I–III, between pp. 12 and 13, 16 and 17, 20 and 21 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

8. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

9. Sircar, “Two Grants of Raghudeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60), p. 8 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

10. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. II (1919), p. 718, Godavari No. 58 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

11. Rangacharya, Topographical List, Vol. II (1919), p. 719, Godavari No. 62 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²