Vira-Choda

Vira-Choda governed Vengi, the old Eastern Chalukya kingdom between the Krishna and the Godavari, for his father, the Chola emperor Kulottunga I.¹² He is known mainly from two copper-plate grants, from Chellur and Pithapuram in the Godavari district.³⁴ Both open with the complete Eastern Chalukya family line: mythical, legendary and historical.³⁴ When E. Hultzsch published the Chellur plates in 1890 they were the latest known document of the dynasty.³⁴

Family

Vira-Choda was the third son of Kulottunga I and Madhurantaki.²⁵ The Chellur and Pithapuram plates say that he had two elder brothers.⁵ From the Teki plates E. Hultzsch identified them as Chodaganga, the eldest, and Mummadi-Choda, the Rajaraja of the Chellur plates.⁵ He showed that Vikrama-Choda, who succeeded to the Chola throne, was Vira-Choda’s younger brother.⁵

Mummadi-Choda, the Rajaraja of the Chellur plates, was an elder brother of Vira-Choda and governed Vengi for a year before him.⁶⁵¹ Vikrama-Choda was a younger brother of Vira-Choda, according to Hultzsch’s reading of the Teki plates.⁵ Robert Sewell recorded that Vira-Choda married a Ganga princess.⁷

Besides his own name he bore the traditional second name Vishnuvardhana, numbered by J. F. Fleet Vishnuvardhana IX.²⁸ He also bore the title Sarvalokasraya and the full imperial titles Maharajadhiraja, Rajaparamesvara and Paramabhattaraka.²⁸ The Chellur plates call him a devout worshipper of Shiva (paramamahesvara).²⁸

Viceroy of Vengi

Kulottunga first gave Vengi to his uncle Vijayaditya VII, and then to his son Rajaraja, who came home after a year.¹² The Chellur plates tell how he then spoke to Rajaraja’s younger brother, “the brave prince Vira-Choda”.¹² He said: “Having ascended the throne of Vengi, place thy feet on the heads of (other) kings.”¹² Fleet noted that Vira-Choda, like his brother, accepted the post only after some persuasion.¹²

He was crowned at a town that the Chellur plates call Jaganatha.¹⁴ H. Krishna Sastri read the name in the Pithapuram plates as Jananathanagari.¹⁴ He thought it was perhaps a poetical name for Rajahmundry.¹⁴ Sewell, on the other hand, identified the place where he was installed with Kakinada (then Cocanada).⁹

The Chellur plates give the date of his installation in Saka 1001 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years).² Fleet worked it out as Thursday, 23 August 1078.² Walter Elliot had noted in 1885, from his own summary of the grant, that Vira-Choda was installed in Saka 1001.¹⁰

The Teki plates of his brother Chodaganga say that Vira-Choda held Vengi for six years before he was recalled.⁶ They say that Chodaganga was crowned in Vengi in 1084.⁶ The Pithapuram plates say that Kulottunga recalled him and then sent him back “for the conquest of the north” in the fifth year.⁴⁵ Hultzsch took this to mean five years after his recall, about 1088–89.⁴⁵ He reckoned that Vira-Choda then governed Vengi until at least 1092–93.⁴⁵

Krishna Sastri offered two explanations of the recall.⁴ It was either a punishment for misbehaviour or rebellion, or a summons to help his father against a foreign enemy.⁴ He thought that Vira-Choda’s absence may have helped the rise of local families such as the Velanandu and Kona chiefs, who later held the Vengi country.⁴ Hultzsch suggested that the silence of Vira-Choda’s grants about Chodaganga meant that the eldest brother had lost his good name.⁵

The dating of his grants

The Chellur plates are dated in the 21st year and the Pithapuram plates in the 23rd year of the reign.⁴ Fleet counted these years from Vira-Choda’s own installation, so that the 23rd year fell in or about 1100.²⁴ Krishna Sastri likewise described the Pithapuram plates as dated in Vira-Choda’s 23rd year.²⁴

In 1901 Hultzsch pointed out that this would place the Chellur plates in 1098–99, while Chodaganga was governor.⁵ He argued that the years must be those of Kulottunga’s reign, counted from 1070.⁵ That put the two grants in 1090–91 and 1092–93.⁵

The Kalinga war

Sewell dated Kulottunga’s first war against Kalinga to about 1090, while Vira-Choda was viceroy with orders for the conquest of the north.¹¹¹² In this campaign Rajendra-Choda of Velanandu defeated “Telugu-Bhima”, a vassal of the Kalinga king.¹¹¹² Rajendra-Choda was a cousin of Vira-Choda’s minister Vedura II.¹¹¹² He chased Telugu-Bhima to the Kolleru lake near Eluru (then Ellore) and killed him.¹¹¹² Krishna Sastri noted that the Pithapuram pillar inscription of Prithvisvara credits Vedura II, a vassal of Vira-Choda, with defeating a Pandya king.⁴

Grants

The Chellur plates record the gift of the village of Koleyo to a temple of Vishnu.² Vira-Choda’s general, a Vaishnava Brahman named Medamarya, had built this temple at the Chellur agrahara (Brahmin village).² Elliot’s summary adds that Medamarya was given the village of Haleru to support two rest-houses (chaitrams), at Draksharama and at Pithapuram.¹⁰

The Pithapuram plates give a new village, Virachodachaturvedimangala, formed by joining three villages, to 536 Brahmans.⁴¹³ Krishna Sastri noted that most of their names are of Tamil origin.⁴¹³ Many of them are names of Vishnu, of Vaishnava temples and of Vaishnava saints.⁴¹³

The Godavari district gazetteer has Vira-Choda succeeded as viceroy by his brother Vikrama-Chola, who governed Vengi until 1118.¹⁴

Footnotes

1. Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), p. 60, translation of the Chellur plates, verses 14–20 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 284 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

3. E. Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), p. 50 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. H. Krishna Sastri, “Pithapuram Plates of Vira-Choda”, Epigraphia Indica V (1898–99), p. 71 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹

5. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga” (1901), p. 335 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

6. E. Hultzsch, “Teki Plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), p. 334 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Sewell and Aiyangar, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 88 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), p. 52 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. Robert Sewell and S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 87 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

10. Walter Elliot, “Note on the Family and Date of the Great Rajendra-Chola of Tanjore”, Indian Antiquary XIV (1885), p. 204 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

11. Sewell and Aiyangar, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 89 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

12. Sewell and Aiyangar, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 90 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

13. Krishna Sastri, “Pithapuram Plates of Vira-Choda” (1899), p. 72 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

14. F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari (1907), p. 22 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩