Reyuru grant of Narasimhavarman II

The Reyuru grant is the only charter known of Narasimhavarman II, and his only dated record.¹ It shows a Pallava king of about 700 giving a village in the Nellore country, after the Chalukyas had taken the neighbouring district of Karmarashtra.²

Discovery and description

The plates were kept in the archives of the Raja of Kalahasti, in the Chittoor district.³ Veturi Prabhakara Sastri found them and edited them in Telugu in the journal of the Sri Venkatesvara Oriental Institute, Tirupati.³⁴ P. B. Desai re-edited them from the originals and impressions.³⁴

There are five plates on a ring with a round seal.³⁵ The seal shows a five-petalled lotus, a couchant (lying) humped bull facing front, a fly-whisk on either side and a crescent above, but no legend.⁵ The set weighs 80 tolas.⁵ Desai thought the bull on this seal the finest Pallava emblem then known.⁵

Script and language

The letters are Kannada-Telugu of the early 8th century.⁵ Desai compared them with the Uruvupalli grant for their elegance, though that grant is two centuries older.⁵ The language is Sanskrit, mostly prose.⁵

Desai noted that the grant is plain and short, unlike the Kuram plates of the king’s father.⁶ It borrows many of its phrases from the early Pallava Sanskrit charters, such as the Uruvupalli, Pikira and Vilavatti grants.⁶

Content

The grant was issued from Kanchipura. It names the king’s grandfather Mahendravikramavarman and his father Paramesvaravarman, and calls the king a devotee of Vishnu, of Siva and of the Brahmans.⁶¹

Narasimhavarman made the gift in the 12th year of his reign, on the full moon of Vaisakha, with a lunar eclipse.¹⁷ He gave the village of Reyuru, north of Asidharapura in Mel-Mundarashtra, as a Brahman’s grant.¹⁷ The donee was Kumaramandasarman of Kuravasri, a performer of the Soma sacrifice of the Rathitara gotra (clan).¹⁷ His father and grandfather were learned in two Vedas.¹⁷

The ministers, officers and courtiers were ordered to collect no dues from the village, especially while on tour.⁷ The grant credits the king’s father with the horse sacrifice.⁷ Desai concluded that the writer had borrowed the claim from older Pallava charters.⁷

The places

Desai took Mel-Mundarashtra, “western Mundarashtra”, to lie west of the Mundarashtra of the earlier grants, round Kovur.⁷² He took it to cover mainly the Atmakur taluk of Nellore.⁷² Following Prabhakara Sastri, he identified Reyuru with Revuru in that taluk.⁷²

A village Reyuru is also granted in an Eastern Chalukya grant of 664, in Karmarashtra.² Desai thought it might be the same village, and suggested that Narasimhavarman II or his father had won back this part of Karmarashtra from the Eastern Chalukyas.² He admitted that there was no direct evidence for such a conquest.²

Desai identified Nandakurra, the seat of the executor, with Nandavaram in the Udayagiri taluk.²⁴ He suggested that Kuravasri might be Krosuru in the Sattenapalle taluk.²⁴

Date

Desai found lunar eclipses on the full moon of Vaisakha in 701, 702, 711 and 720.¹ He preferred 711, so that the reign began about 700.¹ D. C. Sircar first dated the Vunna Guravayapalem plates of the king’s father.⁸ After that, he thought Narasimhavarman II came to the throne about 690–691 or 700.⁸

Footnotes

1. Desai, “Reyuru Grant” (EI XXIX), p. 92 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Desai, “Reyuru Grant” (EI XXIX), p. 94 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. P. B. Desai, “Reyuru Grant of Pallava Narasimhavarman; Year 12”, Epigraphia Indica XXIX (1951–52), p. 89 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Desai, “Reyuru Grant” (EI XXIX), p. 95 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. Desai, “Reyuru Grant” (EI XXIX), p. 90 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

6. Desai, “Reyuru Grant” (EI XXIX), p. 91 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Desai, “Reyuru Grant” (EI XXIX), p. 93 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

8. D. C. Sircar and P. Seshadri Sastri, “Vunna Guravayapalem Plates of Paramesvaravarman I, Year 19”, Epigraphia Indica XXXII (1957–58), p. 96 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²