Satara grant of Vishnuvardhana I

This is the earliest record of Kubja-Vishnuvardhana, the younger brother of the Chalukya king Pulakesin II and the founder of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty of Vengi.¹² It was issued before he had any kingdom of his own.¹² He then held only the rank of yuvaraja, heir-apparent, in the western Chalukya country.¹²

J. F. Fleet re-edited the grant in 1890.³ He used it to correct his own earlier view that the eastern branch had been independent from the beginning of Pulakesin II’s reign.³

Discovery and description

Bal Gangadhar Shastri first published the grant in 1844, with what Fleet called “an indifferent lithograph”.¹ The plates were said to have been found at Satara, the chief town of the district of that name in the Bombay Presidency.¹ James Bird, Secretary of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, acquired them.¹ Then they were lost sight of for many years.¹

About 1884 or 1885, “five or six years” before Fleet wrote, they turned up in a London auction room.¹ A. W. Franks bought them and presented them to the British Museum, where Fleet edited them from the originals.¹ F. Kielhorn’s list of southern inscriptions of 1903 also records them as in the British Museum.⁴

There are three plates, about 7 inches long, smooth and without raised rims.¹ The first and last are inscribed on one side only.¹ The writing is perfectly preserved except for small pieces broken from the corners of the first plate.¹ The oval ring had been cut and rejoined with a bolt.¹

The ring’s roughly circular seal shows the moon at the top and a squatting boar at the bottom.¹ Across the middle is the legend Sri-Bittarasa, “the illustrious king Bitti or Bitta”.¹ Fleet took Bittarasa to be the Prakrit form of the king’s name.⁵⁶ He thought it was probably the name given to him at birth, turned into the Sanskrit Vishnuvardhana when he was made yuvaraja.⁵⁶

Script and language

The letters belong to the southern class of alphabets, of the regular type for the period and region.¹ Fleet noted one unusual form, a long i made by a vertical line drawn across the circle of the short i.¹ He knew no parallel for it in Chalukya grants.¹

The language is Sanskrit.¹ Verses in lines 4 to 10 give the genealogy.¹ Seven of the usual benedictive and imprecatory verses (blessings and curses) follow in lines 25 to 35.¹

Content

The grant opens with the Chalukya family.⁷ They meditate on the feet of the god Svami-Mahasena, belong to the Manavya gotra and are Haritiputras (sons of Hariti).⁷ They are protected by the Mothers, and bear the crest of a boar given by Vishnu.⁷

It names Pulakesin I by his titles Ranavikrama and Satyashraya, and then his son Kirtivarman I.⁷ It goes straight on to Kirtivarman’s son, “the Yuvaraja Vishnuvardhana”, also called Vishamasiddhi.⁷ Fleet noticed that the reigning king, Pulakesin II, is passed over in the genealogy and appears only in the dating clause.²

Vishnuvardhana was staying at Kurumarathi (or Kurumarathya).⁷⁸ There, on the full-moon tithi (lunar day) of Karttika, he gave the village of Alandatirtha in the Srinilaya bhoga (district).⁷⁸ The village lay north of the agrahara (village granted to Brahmins) of Anopalya, on the south bank of the river Bhimarathi.⁷⁸

The donees were the sons of Lakshmanasvamin of the Ghritakausika gotra, Achalasvamin, Vedasvamin and Devasvamin, with Adityasvamin and Nagakumara.⁷⁸ The gift was to maintain the five great sacrifices.⁷⁸

The neighbouring district officers, samantas (subordinate chiefs), village headmen and elders were told that regular and irregular troops and money-lenders were not to enter the village.⁸ The charter ends: “(This) charter has been written in the augmenting eighth year of the glorious Maharaja.”⁸

The village and the place of issue

Fleet identified Alandatirtha with “Alundah” on the Indian Atlas sheet.² It is about five miles north-east of Bhor and some thirty-five miles north of Satara.² It is not on the Bhima itself but on the Sivaganga, which flows through the Nira into the Bhima.² He took Bhimarathi to cover any tributary of the Bhima.²

Bal Gangadhar Shastri had proposed Alandi in Poona district, about twelve miles north of Poona.² Fleet rejected that identification because Alandi lies on the north bank of the Indrayani, not the south.² He could not identify Anopalya, the Srinilaya bhoga or Kurumarathi.²

Either way, he argued, a village on the south bank of the Bhima shows that Vishnuvardhana was then acting within the western Chalukya dominions, far from the east coast.⁹

Date

According to Fleet, the “glorious Maharaja” of the dating clause “can be no one but” Pulakesin II.² The date is the full moon of Karttika in the eighth year of his reign.² Fleet equated it with Saka 539 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years) or 540 current, that is A.D. 616 or 617.² Kielhorn’s list likewise takes the year as Pulakesin II’s eighth.⁴

For Fleet the record proved that, up to that date, “there had been no actual separation of the two kingdoms”.³ In his view, Pulakesin II still reigned over the whole Chalukya family, and Vishnuvardhana assisted him in a subordinate capacity.³

Fleet thought Vishnuvardhana had been made yuvaraja in 615, to represent his brother at home while Pulakesin II campaigned in the east.¹⁰ He thought Vishnuvardhana still held the post in 616 or 617.¹⁰

The epigraphical report for 1907–08 read the date differently.¹¹ It described the Satara grant as “dated in the 8th year”, without naming Pulakesin II.¹¹ It suggested that this corresponded “apparently to A.D. 622–23”.¹¹ It placed the Timmapuram plates, in which Vishnuvardhana is called Maharaja, after that year.¹¹

That conversion seems to count the eighth year from 615, the start of Vishnuvardhana’s own regnal years.¹⁰⁹ It seems not to count from Pulakesin II’s accession in 609 or 610.¹⁰⁹

Titles

Fleet used the grant to show how slowly the formal titles of sovereignty developed in the south.⁵¹² In the Satara grant Pulakesin II, a paramount king, is called only Maharaja.⁵¹² Vishnuvardhana himself takes only the subordinate title Yuvaraja.⁵¹² Fleet noted that he later called himself Maharaja in the Chipurupalle grant, once he ruled Vengi as an independent kingdom.⁵¹²

Edition

J. F. Fleet, “Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. 191: Satara Copper-Plate Grant of Vishnuvardhana I”, Indian Antiquary XIX (1890), pp. 303–311, with text, translation and a photo-lithograph. First edited by Bal Gangadhar Shastri in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. II (1844), p. 1 ff.¹

Footnotes

1. J. F. Fleet, “Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. 191: Satara Copper-Plate Grant of Vishnuvardhana I”, Indian Antiquary XIX (1890), p. 303 (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 ↩²²

2. Fleet, “Satara Copper-Plate Grant of Vishnuvardhana I” (1890), p. 304 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

3. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. F. Kielhorn, “A List of Inscriptions of Southern India”, appendix to Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), p. 92, No. 547 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

5. Fleet, “Satara Copper-Plate Grant of Vishnuvardhana I” (1890), p. 305 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. Fleet, “Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 95 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

7. Fleet, “Satara Copper-Plate Grant of Vishnuvardhana I” (1890), p. 310, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

8. Fleet, “Satara Copper-Plate Grant of Vishnuvardhana I” (1890), p. 311, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

9. Fleet, “Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 96 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Fleet, “Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 94 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

11. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Southern Circle, for 1907–08 (G.O. No. 574, Public, 17 July 1908), Part II, para. 11, p. 49 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

12. Fleet, “Satara Copper-Plate Grant of Vishnuvardhana I” (1890), p. 307 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴