Vilasa grant of Prolaya Nayaka

By this charter of about 1330, the Musunuri chief Prolaya Nayaka gave the village of Vilasa, on the Godavari, to a scholar.¹² Its opening tells how Prataparudra died on the way to Delhi, how the Turushkas (Turks) oppressed the country, and how Prolaya drove them out.³¹ It is the only record that names Prolaya’s capital.¹⁴²

The plates

The grant was found at Kandarada, near Pithapuram in the East Godavari district, nearly a century before it was published.⁵ Hundi Venkata Rao Pantulu and his business partner, a Vaisya, were digging for a brick kiln.⁵ They dug up fourteen copper plates on a ring and divided them, seven each.⁵

The partner’s share and the ring were melted down to make vessels.⁵ The other seven plates carry this grant complete.⁵ They stayed in the finder’s family until his great-grandson handed them to M. Somasekhara Sarma for publication.⁵

The plates were noticed as No. 5 of Appendix A in the Annual Report on Epigraphy for 1938–39.⁵ They were later kept in the Government Museum, Madras.⁵ N. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma published them in Epigraphia Indica XXXII (1957–58), from inked impressions.⁵ See Prolaya Nayaka.

The plates are thick, with raised rims, and are numbered on their inner sides.⁵⁶ The first plate is written on its inner side only, and the other six on both sides.⁵⁶ The ring that held them is lost.⁵⁶

The editors found the writing neat and deep.⁶ They thought it unusually handsome for a grant of the early post-Kakatiya period.⁶ The script is the Telugu script of the first half of the fourteenth century, close to that of the Donepundi grant of Namaya-nayaka.⁶

The language is pure Sanskrit verse.⁶ Only the passage describing the boundaries is in Telugu, and it is less carefully engraved.⁶ The composer is not named, and the usual verses cursing anyone who breaks the grant are missing.⁶ The grant ends with the donor’s signature in Telugu.⁶

Contents

The grant opens with prayers to Vishnu and his boar incarnation, and an account of the creation.³ It then describes the Telugu country, Tilinga, and its kings of the solar and lunar lines.³ After them come the Kakatiyas, ruling from Ekasila (Warangal).³

The grant says that Prataparudra came into bitter conflict with “Ahammada Suratrana”, lord of the Turushkas.³ He defeated the sultan’s army seven times, but he was overcome at last.³ He was carried towards Delhi as a prisoner, and died on the way, on the bank of the Somodbhava, the Narmada.³

Next the grant describes the oppression that followed under the Turushkas.³¹ It then tells of the rise of Prola of the Musunuri family, of the fourth caste.³¹ Prola drove the Yavanas (foreigners) from their forts, and restored the Brahmins’ villages and the Vedic sacrifices.³¹ He ruled from Rekapalli on the Godavari, at the foot of the Malyavanta hill.³¹ He left the running of the state to his younger brothers, among them Kapaya-nayaka.³¹

The grant itself is made to Vennaya, son of Annaya, a Yajurvedin of the Bharadvaja gotra (clan).¹⁷⁸ Vennaya accepted it unwillingly, at Prolaya’s request.¹⁷⁸ At a lunar eclipse, Prolaya gave him Vilasa, the best of the fertile villages of the Kona country on the Godavari.¹⁷⁸ Vennaya divided it into 108 shares and renamed it Prolavaram after the king.¹⁷⁸ He gave the shares to learned Brahmins.¹⁷⁸

The list of donees names the two village gods, Gautamesvara and Kesava, among the shareholders.¹⁸ Over fifty-four shares went to men of the Bharadvaja gotra.¹⁸ The editors noted the many titles of learning among the donees.¹⁸ These include two experts in the guru-tantra of the Mimamsa.¹⁸ See Vilasa and Rekapalli.

Date and importance

The grant names no year.² The editors placed it after 1325, when the recovery of the coast began.² They placed it before about 1336–37, when they thought Kapaya, not Prolaya, led the rising at Warangal.² They suggested about 1330.²

They valued it chiefly for its account of the years after 1323, for these reasons:¹⁴²

• it supports Shams-i Siraj Afif’s statement that Prataparudra died on his way to Delhi, and it names the place¹⁴²
• it describes the Delhi occupation as a person living at the time saw it¹⁴²
• it is the only record that names Prolaya’s capital¹⁴²

Of the places in the grant, they could identify only Vilasa, near Amalapuram, and two of its boundary villages, Siripalle and Magam.² They warned that its account of Prataparudra’s seven victories cannot be accepted without reserve.⁹

Evidence and disagreements

• The donees. The editors count 82 donees, including the two gods, in their summary and 80 in their discussion of the list.¹⁸
• Kapaya. The grant calls him one of Prolaya’s younger brothers, but Kapaya’s own grant of 1346 makes him a cousin.¹¹⁰

Footnotes

1. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 242 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³

2. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 256 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

3. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 241 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

4. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 248 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. N. Venkataramanayya and M. Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant of Prolaya-nayaka”, Epigraphia Indica XXXII (1957–58), p. 239 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

6. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 240 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

7. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 254 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

8. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 255 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

9. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 247 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

10. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 250 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩