Velicherla grant of Prataparudra Gajapati (1510 or 1511)

By this copper-plate grant, the Gajapati king Prataparudra gave the village of Velicherla, east of the fort of Udayagiri, to a Brahmin.¹ G. Ramadas dated it to 24 October 1511.² R. D. Banerji took the plates as proof that the Nellore district and Udayagiri were still part of the empire of Orissa in 1511.³

The plates

The District Munsiff (judge) of Kavali sent the plates to the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy in 1920–21.⁴⁵ They were registered in his report as No. 12 of Appendix A.⁴⁵ There are three copper plates, about 8 by 3¾ inches, on a ring with a fixed seal whose surface was blank.⁴⁵

The plates had been filed as evidence in a court case of 1917.⁴⁵ The case was between the Brahmin holders of the village and its cultivators.⁴⁵ Ongole Venkatarangayya had already edited the grant in English and in Telugu.⁴⁵ Then G. Ramadas edited it again in Epigraphia Indica XXVIII, with a photograph.⁴⁵ R. D. Banerji, writing from the epigraphist’s report of 1921, called them the “Kavali plates”.⁶³

The script is Telugu.⁴ Lines 1 to 32 are Sanskrit verse, and the boundaries of the village are given in Telugu prose in lines 32 to 36.⁴ The grant ends with verses that curse anyone who breaks it.⁴

Ramadas described the seal drawn at the end as a stylised lion, a long sword and a dagger.⁷ He thought these were simplified from the emblems of Purushottama’s grant.⁷ He suggested that the lion stood for the goddess Durga, whom the donor worshipped.⁷

Contents

The grant opens with verses to Ganesa and to Vishnu as the Boar.²⁸ It then traces the donor’s family from the Sun, through Kapilesvara and his son Purushottama, to Prataparudra.²⁸ Prataparudra is praised for defeating the king of Gauda (Bengal), and for his learning.²⁸

His titles include lord of the five Gaudas, lord of the Cholamandala, Vidyanidhi and Rana-banijara.⁸ Ramadas explained the last title as meaning a trader in battles.⁸

The king was holding court in the great fort of Undrakonda.¹ Scholars, patras, behara-mahapatras (officers) and vassals attended him.¹ He gave the village of Velicherla, with all rights and free of the thirty-six imposts (taxes).¹ The village lay east of the fort of Udayachala (Udayagiri), in the Jaladanki sthala of the Pakanadu sima (both are land divisions).¹

The gift went to a Brahmin named Kondaya of the Bharadvaja gotra (clan).¹ He was the son of Tammaya and grandson of Narayana-yajvan, and he lived at Pulugulla.¹

The date

The date is given by a chronogram for Saka 1432 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years).² It is the third day of the bright half of Kartika, a Friday, in the year after Pramoda.² Venkatarangayya had read it as 4 October 1510, and the epigraphist’s report as 1510–11.² The editor of the journal in which Venkatarangayya published it preferred 24 October 1511.²

Ramadas argued that the words mean the year after Pramoda, that is Prajapati, Saka 1433.² He fixed the date at 24 October 1511.² Oriya and Sanskrit works place Prataparudra in the south in his seventeenth year.²⁸ From these and from the grant, Ramadas concluded that the Gajapati was still in the south in October 1511.²⁸ He disputed the epigraphist’s view that Krishnadeva Raya had taken Udayagiri in 1510.²⁸

Significance

Banerji wrote that the plates “prove that even in 1511 the Nellore district and the former Vijayanagara capital of Udayagiri was included in the empire of Orissa”.³ He added that they were issued shortly before the Vijayanagara conquest of Kondavidu.³ Ramadas identified Undrakonda with one of the forts that Krishnadeva Raya is said to have taken.¹ See Prataparudra, Udayagiri, Kavali and the Gajapatis.

Footnotes

1. Ramadas, “Velicherla Grant of Prataparudra Gajapati”, Epigraphia Indica XXVIII (1949–50), p. 208 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Ramadas, “Velicherla Grant of Prataparudra Gajapati”, Epigraphia Indica XXVIII (1949–50), p. 206 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

3. Banerji, History of Orissa, Vol. I (1930), p. 335 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. G. Ramadas, “Velicherla Grant of Prataparudra Gajapati: Saka 1432”, Epigraphia Indica XXVIII (1949–50), p. 205 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

5. Ramadas, “Velicherla Grant of Prataparudra Gajapati”, Epigraphia Indica XXVIII (1949–50), plate between pp. 210 and 211 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

6. R. D. Banerji, History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period, Vol. I (1930), p. 328 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

7. Ramadas, “Velicherla Grant of Prataparudra Gajapati”, Epigraphia Indica XXVIII (1949–50), p. 209 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Ramadas, “Velicherla Grant of Prataparudra Gajapati”, Epigraphia Indica XXVIII (1949–50), p. 207 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸