Nandivarman (Telugu Chola)

Nandivarman is the first known king of the Telugu Cholas, who ruled the Renandu country in today’s Kadapa district.¹² Only one record names him: the Malepadu plates of his great-grandson Punyakumara.¹² Its few words about him have had to carry the whole question of where the family came from and when.²³

The Malepadu plates

H. Krishna Sastri published the plates in 1912.¹ After a prayer to Siva, they introduce “a king Nandivarman of the Kasyapa-gotra”.¹ He was born in the family of Karikala, the famous early Chola king who stopped the overflow of the Kaveri river.¹ The plates say that this Karikala “made his own the dignity of the three kings”.¹

Nandivarman had three sons: Simhavishnu, Sundarananda and Dhananjayavarman.¹ The kingdom passed to Dhananjaya, the youngest, “in regular succession”, and from him to his son and grandson.¹ Krishna Sastri admitted that little more was known about Nandivarman and his sons.⁴

Three sons, two lines

K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya studied the family again in 1956.⁵ They noted that the plates speak of all Nandivarman’s sons as enjoying a kingdom that passed to their sons and grandsons.⁶ In their view this means that the two senior lines were still ruling elsewhere when Punyakumara issued the plates.⁶ They thought the other centres were probably Erigal and Budili.⁶

No descendants of Simhavishnu, the eldest son, are known.⁶ Sundarananda’s line held the country round Budili, and ended with Srikantha, who later took the title Chola Adhiraja.⁶⁷ Krishna Sastri had already noticed Sundarananda among the ancestors of Srikantha in his Madras Museum plates.⁴ Dhananjaya’s line ruled Renandu, with capitals at Chippili and at Biriparu or Malepadu.⁶

A Pallava name

Krishna Sastri noted that the names of Nandivarman’s first two sons look like Pallava names.⁴ The 1956 editors went further.² Nandivarman himself, they wrote, bears the name of the Pallava king Nandivarman, who ruled before Simhavishnu.² They thought his father named him after that king, probably as a sign of submission.² If so, the Cholas were already under the Pallavas a generation before him.²

From this they argued that the Telugu Cholas were settled in the Telugu country before the Pallava Simhavishnu (about 575–600) conquered the Kaveri country.² They thought the family’s move north was part of a wider movement after the Gupta raid into the eastern Deccan in the 4th century.² Whether Karikala himself had a part in it, they said, could not be settled without more evidence.²

Where the sources disagree

• His date. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya placed Nandivarman about 550. They reasoned that he and his son Simhavishnu bear the names of Pallava kings whose feudatories they were.⁷³ Krishna Sastri allowed “a little more than a century” for the five rulers from Nandivarman to Punyakumara, and dated the plates to about the end of the 8th century.⁸ The 1956 editors rejected Krishna Sastri’s dating.³
• Why a Chola family ruled in the Telugu country. The Cuddapah gazetteer of 1915 held that a branch of the Cholas pushed inland after Karikala took Kanchi.⁹ The 1956 editors held that the family was settled there before the Pallava conquest of the Kaveri country, and left Karikala’s part open.²

Footnotes

1. H. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates of Punyakumara; the Fifth Year”, Epigraphia Indica XI (1912), p. 339 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 247 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

3. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 251 and note 4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 341 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 248, genealogical table (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

6. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 249 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

7. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 250 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

8. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 344 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

9. C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah (1915), pp. 26–27 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩