Teki plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga

This edict comes from the last phase of Eastern Chalukya rule in Vengi.¹²³ By then the kingdom had passed to the Chola-Chalukya emperor Kulottunga I, a son of Rajaraja Narendra by a Chola princess.¹²³ It was governed for him by his uncle and his sons.¹²³ The edict does not grant land, but confers honorary privileges on a community of hereditary servants of the dynasty.¹²³

Discovery and description

The Collector of Godavari sent the plates to E. Hultzsch through the Government of Madras.⁴ The Collector reported in April 1901 that a man named Kodi Dosigadu had found them about two months earlier.⁴ He had found them while working in his field at Teki, in Ramachandrapuram taluk.⁴

There are five plates, about 11 inches broad and 6 high.⁴ The first and last are inscribed on the inner side only, and the raised rims of the plates have kept the writing in very good condition.⁴ A copper ring about 6 inches across passes through them.⁴ Its ends are fixed in a four-petalled flower beneath a round seal.⁴

The seal bears the legend Sri-Tribhuvanankusa.⁴ It shows a standing boar flanked by fly-whisks, with a crescent, an elephant-goad and the sun above it.⁴ Below are a conch, a drum, a flower, a bud and a throne.⁴

Script and language

The alphabet is Telugu, and the language is Sanskrit verse and prose.⁴ Letters peculiar to Telugu occur in a number of Telugu names quoted in lines 90 f.⁴

Content

The opening family tree is the same as in the Chellur and Pithapuram plates of Vira-Choda.⁴ It begins to differ at the reign of Kulottunga I.⁴

In Hultzsch’s translation, Kulottunga tells his son Mummadi-Choda that he had “formerly conferred the kingdom of the country of Vengi on my paternal uncle, prince Vijayaditya”.⁵ This uncle had ruled “for only fifteen years” and died.⁵

According to the edict, Mummadi-Choda took up the burden but returned to his parents after ruling Vengi for one year.⁶ His younger brother Vira-Choda then governed it for six years, before his father recalled him.⁶ Kulottunga then sent his first-born son Chodaganga, whom he called Rajaraja.⁶ He described Vengi to him as “the birth-place of the noble Chalukyas, as the ocean (is) of precious pearls”.⁶

Chodaganga, with the old titles Sarvalokasraya and Vishnuvardhana, issued the edict from the hall of his palace.⁷ The palace was at the city named after Jananatha.⁷ He addressed the edict to the Rashtrakutas and other cultivators living between the Manneru river and the Mahendra mountain.⁷

He honoured those servants of his family who had “come already at the beginning with king Vijayaditya, the lord of Ayodhya”.⁷ This Vijayaditya was the legendary ancestor of the Chalukyas.⁷ The servants lived in the town of Vijayavata, “the capital of the kings (who were) ornaments of the race of the Moon”.⁷ They were the people of the Teliki family, divided into a thousand families, ten of which are named.⁷

They were granted, “as long as the moon and the sun shall last”, the right to ride on horseback along the roads as a married couple during wedding festivals.⁷⁸ This right held at Vijayavata and in every other town and village.⁷⁸ At the end of the festival, when they laid a pair of fine cloths at the king’s feet, they were to receive betel in a golden vessel.⁷⁸ This was what old custom required.⁷⁸

The edict is dated in the seventeenth year of the reign.⁸ Its composer was Viddayabhatta and its writer Pennacharya.⁸ Hultzsch noted that the same two men composed and wrote the Chellur and Pithapuram plates of Vira-Choda.³

The places

Hultzsch took the Manneru and the Mahendra mountain to be the southern and northern limits of the province of Vengi.² The Manneru flows past Singarayakonda in Kandukur taluk of Nellore district.² The Mahendra mountain is in Ganjam district.²

The Teliki families were believed to have settled at Vijayavata, the modern Vijayawada (then Bezwada).³ Hultzsch thought that the town “seems to have been the former capital of the Eastern Chalukyas”.³ He also found two inscriptions of Saka 1076 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years) in the Bhavanarayana temple at Bapatla.³ They record gifts by merchants of the “Teliki thousand”, which claimed to have ruled over the towns of Ayodhya and Bejavala.³

H. Krishna Sastri proposed to identify Jananathanagari, the residence of Chodaganga and of Vira-Choda, with Rajamahendri (Rajahmundry).² J. F. Fleet, writing earlier on the Chellur plates, had left the place unidentified.⁹

Date and the viceroys of Vengi

Verse 34 gives the date of Chodaganga’s accession to the throne of Vengi.⁶ It is Saka 1006, on a Thursday, the full-moon tithi (lunar day) of Jyaishtha, in the nakshatra (lunar mansion) Jyeshtha and the lagna (rising sign) Simha.⁶ Hultzsch took it to correspond probably to 22 May 1084.²

F. Kielhorn, in a postscript, found the date irregular.⁸ In Saka 1006 expired, the full moon of Jyaishtha ended on Wednesday, 22 May 1084, not on a Thursday.⁸ The other possible years did not fit either.⁸

The plates changed the accepted order of Kulottunga’s sons.² Hultzsch had thought the eldest was Vikrama-Choda, Kulottunga’s successor on the Chola throne.² The Teki plates showed that it was Chodaganga.²

They also forced him to revise the dates of the Chellur and Pithapuram plates of Vira-Choda, which are dated in the 21st and 23rd years.² He had counted these years from Vira-Choda’s own installation.² If the Teki plates were dated the same way, from Chodaganga’s accession in 1084, Vira-Choda’s Chellur grant would fall during his brother’s governorship.²

Hultzsch therefore counted all three from Kulottunga I’s accession in 1070.² This put them in 1086–87, 1090–91 and 1092–93.² On this view Vira-Choda governed Vengi a second time after Chodaganga.² The Pithapuram plates say that he was recalled and then sent to Vengi again “in the fifth year”.² Hultzsch’s table gives:²

• Mummadi-Choda (Rajaraja): 1077–78
• Vira-Choda: 1078–84, and again from 1088–89 to at least 1092–93
• Chodaganga (Rajaraja): 1084–1088–89

Hultzsch’s own earlier edition of the Chellur plates, in 1890, had dated that grant by Vira-Choda’s own reign, to Saka 1022.¹ He also suspected that Chodaganga had fallen out with his father and his brother Vira-Choda.² His reason was that the Chellur plates are silent about Chodaganga’s governorship, and the Pithapuram plates allude to it without naming him.²

Edition

E. Hultzsch edited the plates as “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga; dated in the Seventeenth Year (of Kulottunga I.)” in Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), No. 35, pp. 334–347, with text, translation and plates.⁴ V. Rangacharya summarised the record under Ramachandrapuram taluk in 1919.¹⁰

Footnotes

1. E. Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), p. 51 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga” (1901), p. 335 (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

3. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga” (1901), p. 336 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

4. E. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), p. 334 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

5. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga” (1901), p. 344, translation, verses 13–15 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

6. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga” (1901), p. 345, translation, verses 17–34 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

7. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga” (1901), p. 346, translation, lines 76–97 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

8. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga” (1901), p. 347, translation and Kielhorn’s postscript (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

9. J. F. Fleet, “Chellur Copper-plate Grant of Vira-Chodadeva”, Indian Antiquary XIX (1890), p. 424 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

10. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. II (1919), p. 745, Ramachandrapuram taluk, No. 364 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩