Talamanchi plates of Vikramaditya I

The Talamanchi plates are a grant of Vikramaditya I of Badami, found near Nellore. They are valued mainly for their date, which settled the beginning of his reign, and for the name of his guru.¹²

Discovery

A. Butterworth and V. Venugopal Chetti first published the inscription in their Nellore District Inscriptions.³ According to them, a servant of Adapala Venkata Reddi found the plates while ploughing.³¹ The land was known as Talamanchipadu in Talamanchi, Nellore taluk, “where a flourishing village is said to have once stood”.³¹ The plates were sent to the Madras Museum.³¹ E. Hultzsch re-edited them in Epigraphia Indica IX from three sets of ink impressions prepared by V. Venkayya.³¹

Venkayya described three copper plates, the first and last written on the inner side only.¹ They hang on an oval ring whose ends are fixed in an oval seal.¹ The emblems on the seal are much worn but show a lump in the middle, “perhaps meant to represent a boar”.¹ Plates, ring and seal weigh 80 tolas.¹

Hultzsch noted that the alphabet is like that of two other grants of Vikramaditya I.¹ The language is Sanskrit, with four verses in the Anushtubh metre and the rest in prose.¹ Three Dravidian letters occur only in the two village names Elasatti and Kolchumko[nra].¹

The grant

The king, son of Satyasraya (Pulakesin II), speaks of the sixth year of his reign.¹⁴⁵ At an eclipse of the sun in the month of Sravana, he says, he gave the village of Elasatti, north of the village of Kolchumko[nra].¹⁴⁵ He gave it to “Our own preceptor (guru) Srimeghacharya of the Vasishtha gotra”.¹⁴⁵ The order was written by Vajravarman of the Vaidya family.¹⁴⁵ Butterworth and Venugopal Chetti could not identify Elasatti.¹

D. C. Sircar compared this grant with the Amudalapadu plates of the year before.⁶ In those plates the king gave a village to another guru, Sudarsanacharya, when he was initiated into the Shaiva faith.⁶ Sircar suggested that Meghacharya succeeded Sudarsanacharya as head of the same religious order.⁶ Or else, he suggested, Meghacharya taught the king while Sudarsana initiated him.⁶ See the Amudalapadu plates.

Date

F. Kielhorn worked out the date in a postscript.² Between 635 and 685 only one solar eclipse in the month of Sravana could have been seen at Badami.² It was the annular eclipse of Monday, 13 July 660.² Kielhorn took this together with the Nerur plates of Vijayabhattarika (23 September 659, in the fifth year).² It showed that Vikramaditya I began to reign between September 654 and July 655.² J. F. Fleet had placed the accession in the autumn of 655.²

Sircar used the same date in fixing the accession between 30 April and 13 July 655.⁷ Robert Sewell also cites the Talamanchi plates for the accession.⁸ In the Nellore District Inscriptions, whose edition of the grant begins on p. 189, a plate of ink impressions headed “Copper-plate No. 24” faces that page.⁹

Footnotes

1. Hultzsch, “Talamanchi Plates” (1908), p. 99 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

2. F. Kielhorn, postscript to Hultzsch, “Talamanchi Plates”, Epigraphia Indica IX (1908), p. 102 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

3. E. Hultzsch, “Talamanchi Plates of Vikramaditya I; A.D. 660”, Epigraphia Indica IX (1908), p. 98 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Hultzsch, “Talamanchi Plates” (1908), p. 101 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. Hultzsch, “Talamanchi Plates” (1908), p. 102 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. Sircar, “Amudalapadu Plates” (1959), p. 179 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

7. D. C. Sircar, “Amudalapadu Plates of Vikramaditya I, Year 5”, Epigraphia Indica XXXII (1959), p. 175, note 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

8. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 24 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

9. Alan Butterworth and V. Venugopaul Chetty, A Collection of the Inscriptions on Copper-plates and Stones in the Nellore District (1905), plate facing p. 189 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩