Ranastipundi grant of Vimaladitya

This grant is the only inscription known of Vimaladitya, the Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi who was the father of Rajaraja Narendra.¹ Its editor, V. Venkayya, valued it chiefly for the date of the king’s coronation.¹ Earlier scholars had only been able to work this out backwards from his son’s.¹

Discovery and description

The plates were found about seventy years before 1901, when earth was being dug for bricks.² The spot was in the fields of a cultivator’s ancestors in the Amalapuram taluk of Godavari district.² The plates belonged to Valavala Jagganna of Amalapuram.² They were sent through the Collector and the Government of Madras in 1899, to be returned to him after study.²

There are five plates, each a little over 10 inches broad, strung on a ring that had not been cut.² The ring is fixed in a four-petalled flower that forms the base of a round seal.² On the seal are the legend Sri-Tribhuvanankusa, a running boar with an elephant-goad, the crescent moon, the sun between two fly-whisks, and an eight-petalled flower.² The plates have raised rims, and the writing is mostly well preserved, though verdigris (copper rust) has damaged it in places.²

Script and language

The alphabet is ancient Telugu, and Venkayya listed its special features in detail.³ The language is mostly Sanskrit verse and prose.³ The boundaries of the village granted (lines 87–94) are in a mixture of Sanskrit and Telugu prose.³

Content

The grant has these parts, in order:³

the Pauranik (mythical) family line (lines 1–15)³
a legendary account of the family’s ancestors (lines 15–25)³
the historical family line of the donor (lines 25–42)³
the date of his coronation (verse 13), and his praises and titles³
a description of the donee and his ancestors (verses 21–34)³
the grant itself with the boundaries³
the date and the names of the executor, the composer and the writer³

Its family line agrees almost word for word with that of the Nandamapundi grant of Rajaraja I.³ The agreement runs as far as the reign of Saktivarman, Vimaladitya’s predecessor.³

Venkayya pointed out that this was the earliest inscription yet found to contain the mythical and legendary sections.¹ The same legend appears in the later Korumelli plates.⁴ A king named Vijayaditya came south from Ayodhya and was killed fighting Trilochana-Pallava.⁴ His pregnant queen took refuge at the agrahara (Brahmin village) of Mudivemu, where she gave birth to Vishnuvardhana.⁴ J. F. Fleet called this story “a mere farrago of vague tradition and Puranic myths, of no authority”.⁴

The donee was a minister of the king named Vajra, in Telugu Vajjiya-Peggada.⁵ He was of the Kaundinya gotra (clan) and lived at Karamachedu.⁵ Venkayya noted a village called Karimchedu nine miles west of Bapatla in Krishna (then Kistna) district.⁶ He could not identify Ranastipundi, the village granted, which lay in Guddavadi-vishaya.⁵⁶ He could not identify the other villages either in its boundaries.⁵⁶

The verses were composed by Bhimanabhatta, son of Rachiya-Podderi.⁵ Venkayya took him to be the father of Chetanabhatta, the composer of the Korumelli plates.⁵⁶ The writer was Jontacharya.⁵⁶

The king

Vimaladitya was the son of Dana or Danarnava and his queen Aryamahadevi.¹ He was the younger brother of Saktivarman, who ruled immediately after the interregnum in Vengi.¹

The grant gives him the surnames Birudanka-Bhima, Tribhuvanankusa, Mummadi-Bhima and Bhupa-Mahendra.⁵ Venkayya explained Mummadi-Bhima, “the third Bhima”, by the two Bhimas among his ancestors.⁵ Twice the grant calls him the rescuer of his family.⁵ Venkayya wondered whether this referred to his marriage alliance with the Cholas and the birth of an heir, Rajaraja I.⁵

Date

The coronation verse gives the Simha lagna, the Pushya nakshatra, and a Thursday.¹ It names the sixth tithi (lunar day) of the bright fortnight of the month Vrishabha, in Saka 933 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years).¹ F. Kielhorn found that the date works if the fifth tithi is read instead of the sixth.¹ He equated it with Thursday, 10 May 1011.¹ The grant itself is dated in the eighth year of the reign, in the month Simha.⁷

The years without a king in Vengi

All the grants give 27 years to the interregnum after Danarnava.¹ But the interval between the accessions of Amma II (Saka 867) and Rajaraja I (Saka 944) is 77 years.¹ The reigns in between add up to only 47.¹ The interregnum had therefore been reckoned at 30 years.¹

With Vimaladitya’s accession fixed in 1011, Venkayya brought the interregnum back to roughly 27 years.¹ Counting back Saktivarman’s twelve-year reign, he placed the interregnum between about 972 and 999.¹

Venkayya also questioned the old view that a Chola invasion caused the interregnum.¹ The first Chola king to claim the conquest of Vengi, Rajaraja I, came to the throne in 985.¹ The conquest first appears in his 14th year, 998–99.¹ Venkayya concluded that the Chola invasion probably ended the interregnum rather than caused it.¹ In his view Rajaraja I placed Saktivarman on the throne.¹

Seven years or eleven?

The later Eastern Chalukya grants, from the Nandamapundi grant onwards, give Vimaladitya a reign of seven years.⁵ Yet this grant is dated in his eighth year, and 1011 to 1022 makes eleven.⁵ Venkayya offered a possible explanation, from these records:⁵

Two inscriptions on the Mahendragiri hill in Ganjam district record that Rajendra-Chola defeated Vimaladitya and set up a pillar of victory there.⁵
A record at Tiruvaiyaru near Tanjore, of the 29th year of the Chola Rajaraja I, records gifts by a Vishnuvardhana-Vimaladitya.⁵

Venkayya suggested that Vimaladitya was taken to Thanjavur (then Tanjore) as a prisoner.⁵ There, he suggested, Vimaladitya married the Chola princess Kundava, and was sent back about 1015.⁵ If so, the later records counted his reign only from his return.⁵

Edition

V. Venkayya, “Ranastipundi Grant of Vimaladitya; Dated in the Eighth Year”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), No. 36, pp. 347 ff., with text and translation. The library’s scan of the volume ends at p. 352, in the middle of the text.²⁶

Venkayya, “Ranastipundi Grant of Vimaladitya” (1901), p. 349, with F. Kielhorn’s note on the date (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹
V. Venkayya, “Ranastipundi Grant of Vimaladitya”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), p. 347 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Venkayya, “Ranastipundi Grant of Vimaladitya” (1901), p. 348 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
J. F. Fleet, “Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. CLIII: Korumelli Plates of Rajaraja”, Indian Antiquary XIV (1885), p. 49 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Venkayya, “Ranastipundi Grant of Vimaladitya” (1901), p. 350 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹
Venkayya, “Ranastipundi Grant of Vimaladitya” (1901), p. 351 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
F. Kielhorn, “A List of the Inscriptions of Southern India”, appendix to Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 96, No. 568 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩