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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Vijaya-Skandavarman (Pallava)

Pallava king in whose reign the queen Charudevi, wife of the crown prince Vijaya-Buddhavarman, granted land to a temple of Narayana. Her Prakrit grant was found near Guntur and is now in the British Museum. It is the only record of his reign. Scholars disagree whether he was the same man as Sivaskandavarman of the Mayidavolu and Hirahadagalli plates.

Vijaya-Skandavarman is known only from a Prakrit copper-plate grant issued in his reign by a Pallava queen.1 Sir Walter Elliot secured its plates, which are now in the British Museum.1 Robert Sewell recorded in 1884 that the grant had been found near Guntur.2 He added that it was then thought the earliest Pallava inscription known, of about the 4th century in A. C. Burnell’s opinion.2 See the British Museum grant of Charudevi.

Family

The grant is dated in a year, now illegible, of “the glorious Maharaja Vijaya-Skandavarman”. In E. Hultzsch’s translation, it records an order of Charudevi, “the queen of the Yuvamaharaja, the Bharadvaja, the glorious Vijaya-Buddhavarman (of the family) of the Pallavas, (and) mother of [Buddhyan]kura”.3

Vijaya-Buddhavarman was, in Hultzsch’s reading of the grant, the son of Vijaya-Skandavarman.4 Hultzsch drew from the grant a short family line:4

  • Vijaya-Skandavarman
  • his son, the crown prince Vijaya-Buddhavarman, married to Charudevi
  • their son Buddhyankura4

H. Krishna Sastri likewise took Vijaya-Skandavarman to be the grandfather of Buddhyankura and the king reigning when the grant was made.5

Charudevi was the queen of the crown prince Vijaya-Buddhavarman.63 The second part of her son’s name is damaged.63 Hultzsch restored it as Buddhyankura, noting that ankura, “a sprout”, means the same as pallava.63 Buddhyankura was the son of Charudevi and Vijaya-Buddhavarman.43

The grant

Charudevi addressed her order to an official at a place whose name Hultzsch read, with some doubt, as Kataka.43 She gave four nivartanas (a land measure) of land to the god Narayana of the Kuli-Mahataraka temple at Dalura. The land was a field below the “King’s Tank”, to be ploughed by one Atuka.43 She made the gift “making (it) a means for increasing Our length of life and power”.43

Hultzsch could not trace Dalura.43 R. Gopalan called the grant the earliest Pallava record known to him of a royal gift to a temple.7

Was he Sivaskandavarman?

  • R. Gopalan thought Vijaya-Skandavarman “presumably identical” with Sivaskandavarman.87 His reasons were that vijaya and siva were mere prefixes, and that the letters of the British Museum and Hirahadagalli grants are very alike.87
  • G. Jouveau-Dubreuil wrote in 1917 that the names are not exactly the same.9 For that reason, he wrote, the two could not be identified with certainty.9
  • D. C. Sircar argued that Siva, unlike Vijaya, was part of the name. The British Museum grant spells double consonants in full and ends with Sanskrit verses, so he thought it later than Sivaskandavarman’s grants.1011 Vijaya-Skandavarman is not known to have ruled at Kanchi.1213 Sircar suggested that he may have been an early member of the Pallava house of the Nellore–Guntur region.1213

Date

Gopalan placed Vijaya-Skandavarman between about 275 and 340, as a successor of Sivaskandavarman.7 Sircar placed him after Sivaskandavarman, in the 4th century.1112 The dates charted on this site are only an approximation after these views.

Footnotes

  1. E. Hultzsch, “British Museum Plates of Charudevi”, Epigraphia Indica VIII (1905–06), p. 143 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  2. Robert Sewell, Lists of Inscriptions, and Sketch of the Dynasties of Southern India (1884), p. 211 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  3. Hultzsch, “British Museum Plates of Charudevi” (1906), p. 146, translation (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  4. Hultzsch, “British Museum Plates of Charudevi” (1906), p. 145 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  5. H. Krishna Sastri, “Two Pallava Copper-plate Grants”, Epigraphia Indica XV (1919–20), p. 247 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  6. Hultzsch, “British Museum Plates of Charudevi” (1906), p. 144 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas of Kanchi (1928), p. 39 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. R. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas of Kanchi (1928), p. 35 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  9. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The Pallavas (1917), p. 14 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  10. D. C. Sircar, The Successors of the Satavahanas in Lower Deccan (1939), pp. 166–167 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  11. Sircar, Successors of the Satavahanas (1939), p. 168 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  12. Sircar, Successors of the Satavahanas (1939), p. 181 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. Sircar, Successors of the Satavahanas (1939), p. 194 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

Dynasties

Pallavas

c. 250–900 CE

Dynasty of Kanchi (Kanchipuram) whose kings held the Telugu country south of the Krishna for much of the 4th to 7th centuries CE. Their earliest charters, in Prakrit, were sent from Kanchi to an officer at Dhanyakataka near Amaravati. A later line issued Sanskrit grants of villages in the Guntur and Nellore country from camps such as Palakkada and Dasanapura. The Chalukyas took Vengi and the Guntur country early in the 7th century. But Pallava kings still granted villages in Nellore until about 700, and their vassals held parts of Chittoor and Rayalaseema until the Chola conquest about 900.

References

Sources (6)
  1. Archaeological Survey of India, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VIII (1905–06) (opens in a new tab), Archaeological Survey of India, 1906, pp. 143–146. E. Hultzsch, British Museum Plates of Charudevi. [Public domain]
  2. Robert Sewell, Archaeological Survey of Southern India, Vol. II: Lists of Inscriptions, and Sketch of the Dynasties of Southern India (Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. II) (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1884, pp. 211. [Public domain]
  3. F. W. Thomas (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XV (1919–20) (opens in a new tab), Government of India, Calcutta, 1925, pp. 247. H. Krishna Sastri, Two Pallava Copper-plate Grants. [Public domain]
  4. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil (tr. V. S. Swaminadha Dikshitar), The Pallavas (opens in a new tab), The author, Pondicherry, 1917, pp. 14. [Public domain]
  5. R. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas of Kanchi (opens in a new tab), University of Madras, 1928, pp. 34–35, 39. [Public domain]
  6. D. C. Sircar, The Successors of the Satavahanas in Lower Deccan (opens in a new tab), University of Calcutta, 1939, pp. 166–168, 175, 181, 194. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]

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