Tandikonda grant of Amma II

This is a grant by Amma II, the Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (945–970), to a temple of Shiva at Vijayawada (then Bezwada).¹² It is known mainly for its second part.¹² This part traces the spiritual descent of the king’s Saiva preceptor (religious teacher), a teacher of the Kalamukha school.¹²

Discovery

B. V. Krishna Rao of Rajahmundry edited the plates in 1936.³ He told the story of their discovery from the letters of the missionary Isaac Cannaday.³

In the cold season of 1914–15, Cannaday was touring in the Sattenapalle taluk of Guntur district.³ At Oruvakallu he heard that a man digging for earth to build house walls had found a set of copper plates.³ The fifth plate, and perhaps the seal and ring, had been melted down.³

Cannaday got the remaining four plates and sent them early in 1916 to the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy at Madras.³ There they were registered as copper plate No. 11 of 1914–15.³

Krishna Rao placed the findspot near a granite rock, nearly 260 feet high, to the west of the village.³ He added that a cave in the rock held a goddess called Ganga.³ Ruins and mounds round the rock, he wrote, suggested that a large village had stood there at one time.³

Description and language

Each plate measures about 11 by 6 inches.³¹⁴ The first is inscribed on the inner side only, and the others on both sides.³¹⁴ There are sixty-nine lines in all, well preserved and carefully engraved.³¹⁴ The text breaks off in mid-sentence, so the writing must have continued on the lost fifth plate.³¹⁴

Krishna Rao described the characters as Telugu of the 10th century, of the later cursive type.¹ He noted that older forms are kept for some initial vowels.¹ The language is Sanskrit, with nineteen verses besides the usual closing verses.¹ The names of places in the boundaries are in Telugu.¹

The grant

The grant opens with an invocation to Shiva and gives the usual family tree of the Eastern Chalukyas.¹ Krishna Rao found that it matched the genealogies in Amma II’s Elavarru (Yelavarru), Padamkaluru and Maliyapundi grants.¹ He found that it added nothing new about the dynasty.¹

It then records that Vijayaditya Narendramrigaraja had built a temple at Vijayavatika (Vijayawada).² J. F. Fleet’s list of the dynasty gives Narendramrigaraja as the title of Vijayaditya II.⁵ The temple was called Samastabhuvanasraya, and he set up in it an image of Uma-Mahesvara.²

At the winter solstice, Amma II gave this god the village of Tandikonda, in the Gudla-Kanderuvadi district.² With it he gave three other villages: Ammalapundi, Gollapundi and Asuvulaparru.² The four villages were made temple land (devabhoga), free of taxes.² The income was to pay for repairs, for offerings and music, and for a feeding house (sattra).²

The boundaries are given by a stream, tanks, a tree and a heap of boulders.² The grant names the king as donor, his preceptor Vidyesvara as composer and the Katakanayaka as executor (ajnapti).⁴ Robert Sewell listed the same gift under the year 958.⁶

The Kalamukha teachers

The second part praises the Kalamukha ascetics, a branch of the Pasupata Saivas.²⁴ They followed the Vedas and belonged to the Simha-parishad.²⁴ They lived at old Shiva temples such as that of Amaravatesvara at Amaravati.²⁴

The text traces a line of teachers from Lakulisa-Pasupati, through Prabhutarasi, Bhuvanarasi, Vidyesvara and others, to Vidyesvara II and his pupil Prabhutarasi III.²⁴ In the presence of his teacher, Prabhutarasi III built a temple and a three-storeyed monastery decorated with paintings.²⁴ He obtained from Amma II three villages and a thousand goats for them.²⁴

N. Lakshminarayan Rao questioned Krishna Rao’s pedigree of these teachers in a note.⁴ He thought that the title Kalamukhendra belonged to Prabhutarasi II and not to Pasupati II.⁴

Krishna Rao went on to suggest that two teachers, Vidyarasi and Taporasi, were the same as Vidyesvara and Prabhutarasi of this grant.⁷ Vidyarasi and Taporasi are mentioned in an inscription of the 10th-century prince Vikramakesari at Kodumbalur in the Tamil country.⁷ The journal’s editor called the suggestion far-fetched, since the names were not similar enough.⁷

Date

The grant gives no date of its own.¹ Krishna Rao noticed that the other grants of Amma II give the coronation year as Saka 867 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years), in word-numerals (numbers written as words).¹ This one, he noticed, seems to give Saka 880.¹ He thought the scribe had confused the coronation date with the year of the grant.¹ In his view the grant was made at the winter solstice of Saka 880.¹

He linked this with the Mangallu grant.¹² By that grant, Amma II left for Kalinga after eleven years of rule because of the Rashtrakuta Krishna III.¹² Krishna Rao suggested that Krishna III had tried to put his protégé Badapa on the throne, and that Amma’s campaign ended in a great victory.¹² In his reading, the Tandikonda grant asks for long life, health and prosperity for the king’s people.¹² He suggested that it was made on Amma’s return.¹²

The article gives the Christian equivalent of Saka 880 as A.D. 968–69.² But it also places the grant in the thirteenth year of the reign.² Saka 880 corresponds to 958–59.²

The journal’s editor disagreed with part of this.¹ In a note, he translated the phrase about the king’s people more literally.¹ In his translation it is a wish for the increase of the country, progeny, life, health and prosperity.¹ He concluded that it did not refer to any war and could not help to date the grant.¹ See Mangallu grant and Arumbaka plates of Badapa.

The places

Krishna Rao wrote that only three of the places named could be identified: Tandikonda, Lamu and Gollapundi.⁷ Tandikonda was the modern Tadikonda in the Guntur taluk, about eight miles north of Guntur.⁷ The tanks called Chayita and Bhimasamudra, on its boundaries, still existed.⁷ Bhimasamudra had on its bank a large mound with extensive ruins of a Shiva temple.⁷ Lamu, on the southern boundary, lay two miles south of Tadikonda.⁷

He identified Gollapundi with a Gollapudi on the north bank of the Krishna near Vijayawada.⁷ He suggested that Ammalapundi might be Anamarlapudi, twelve miles south-east of Tadikonda.⁷

He explained Gudla-Kanderuvadi as meaning Kanderuvadi of the temples, the part of the Kanderuvadi district round Amaravati.⁷ He took the district Kanderuvadi to be named after an old township, Kanderu, the modern Kanteru in the Guntur taluk.⁷ See Tadikonda.

Footnotes

1. Krishna Rao, “Tandikonda Grant of Ammaraja II” (1936), p. 162 and note 4 by the editor (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 ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷ ↩²⁸

2. Krishna Rao, “Tandikonda Grant of Ammaraja II” (1936), p. 163 (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 ↩²³ ↩²⁴

3. B. V. Krishna Rao, “Tandikonda Grant of Ammaraja II”, Epigraphia Indica XXIII (1935–36), p. 161 and note 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

4. Krishna Rao, “Tandikonda Grant of Ammaraja II” (1936), p. 164 and note 2 by N. Lakshminarayan Rao (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

5. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 11 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

6. Robert Sewell and S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 49 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

7. Krishna Rao, “Tandikonda Grant of Ammaraja II” (1936), pp. 165–166 and p. 165, note 5 by the editor (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²