Tippaluru inscription of Punyakumara

The stone

The inscription is deeply cut on a red stone in the village of Tippaluru, in the Kamalapuram taluk of the Kadapa (then Cuddapah) district.¹ Its letters are well formed and ornamental.¹ M. Venkataramayya took estampages (ink copies) of it, and later the epigraphy department did too (No. 283 of 1937–38).¹ K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya edited it in 1956, as inscription F of their Telugu Chola records.¹

Script

The editors called it unique for its letters as well as its contents.¹ In general appearance it looks more like the so-called Pallava-Grantha script than the usual Telugu-Kannada script of the place and period.¹ It closely resembles the Vallam rock inscription of the Pallava king Mahendravarman I.¹ They assigned it to the first half of the 7th century.¹ This likeness is one of the chief grounds on which they dated Punyakumara about 625.²

Contents

The record names the ruler as Erikalla-Mutturaju Punyakumara, who bore the titles Marunrapidugu, Madamuditu and Uttamottama.³⁴ He was then ruling Renandu from his capital (palu) at Chirpali.³⁴ At that time one Chimanakalu gave fifty units of land at Tirpaluru to Kattisarmma of Kilevuru, a paradaya of Tarkkapulolu.³⁴ The land was given as a panasa.³⁴

The editors identified Chirpali with Chippili in the Madanapalle taluk.⁵³ They identified Tirpaluru with Tippaluru itself, and Tarkkapulolu with Takkolu in the Sidhout taluk.⁵³ They traced the Telugu word prolu (a settlement) back to the older form pulolu.⁵³

The date by weekday and hora

The grant is dated on the second day of the dark fortnight of Karttika, a Monday.³ The nakshatra (lunar mansion) was Punarvasu, and the hora (planetary hour) was that of Brihaspati.³ The details are too few to give a date in the Christian era.³ But the editors worked out that so unusual a combination could fall only in a narrow set of circumstances.³

They noted that south Indian records rarely name weekdays before about the 9th century.⁶ Weekdays appear first in Western Chalukya grants of about the time of Pulakesin II.⁶ This was the earliest mention of the hora then known in south Indian epigraphy.⁶

A prince before he was king

Here Punyakumara carries only the rank of Mutturaju, with the singular ending of his name.⁶ For this reason the editors concluded that he had not yet become supreme ruler.⁶ In the Malepadu plates and the Ramesvaram pillar he bears the supreme titles.⁶ Even as Mutturaju, they noted, he held a string of titles modelled on those of Mahendravarman I.⁶ See Punyakumara and the Telugu Cholas of Renadu.

Footnotes

1. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 231 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 251 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

3. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 232 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

4. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 234, translation (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 225 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 233 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷