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Chendalur

Village formerly in the Ongole taluk. It is the Chendalura of a Pallava copper-plate grant of Kumaravishnu II and the Chendapura of an Eastern Chalukya grant of 673. Both sets of plates were dug up there from a pot of paddy husk while a house was being built.

Chendalur was a village of the Ongole taluk, then in the Nellore district, when E. Hultzsch edited its copper plates in 1906.1 G. Jouveau-Dubreuil gave the name as Chandaluru, in the Ongole taluk of the Guntur district.2

Two grants of one village

Hultzsch gave the same account of two sets of copper plates from Chendalur.13 A ryot (farmer) digging the foundations of his house had found them buried in a pot of paddy husk.13 This was some forty years before they reached Hultzsch.13

One is the Sanskrit grant of the Pallava king Kumaravishnu II, issued from Kanchipura.4 It gives a field in Chendalura in Karmmanka-rashtra.4 The other is a grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Sarvalokasraya, dated to 673, giving the whole village of Chendapura in Kamma-rashtra to six Brahmans. Hultzsch took both names to mean Chendalur itself.5 See the Chendalur plates.

Hultzsch noticed that the Chalukya grant borrowed some of its praises of the kings from Pallava records.3 He explained that the Pallavas had been “supplanted by the Eastern Chalukyas”.3 The Nellore gazetteer of 1942 took Sarvalokasraya’s grant as evidence of Eastern Chalukya rule in the district in his time.6

Footnotes

  1. E. Hultzsch, “Chendalur Plates of Kumaravishnu II”, Epigraphia Indica VIII (1905–06), p. 233 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The Pallavas (1917), p. 16 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  3. E. Hultzsch, “Chendalur Plates of Sarvalokasraya; A.D. 673”, Epigraphia Indica VIII (1905–06), pp. 236–237 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. Hultzsch, “Chendalur Plates of Kumaravishnu II” (1906), p. 234 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  5. Hultzsch, “Chendalur Plates of Sarvalokasraya” (1906), p. 238 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  6. Gazetteer of the Nellore District, brought up to 1938, Vol. A (1942), p. 34 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

Photos

People

Kumaravishnu II (Pallava)

c. 425–450 CE

Pallava king of Kanchi known from the Chendalur plates. He issued them from Kanchipura in the second year of his reign, granting land in the village of Chendalura in Karmarashtra, in the present Prakasam district. Where he belongs in the Pallava line is disputed: before Simhavarman, according to Jouveau-Dubreuil, or between Simhavarman and Simhavishnu, according to Hultzsch.

Vishnuvardhana II (Eastern Chalukya)

663–672 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (663–672), son of Indra-Bhattaraka and nephew of Jayasimha I, who may have adopted him. Two of his grants are the earliest Eastern Chalukya records whose dates can be worked out to the day. J. F. Fleet built the chronology of the whole dynasty on them. His son Mangi-yuvaraja followed him, and Mangi-yuvaraja's grant of 673 was found at Chendalur in the Ongole country.

Mangi-yuvaraja

c. 672–696 CE

Fifth king of the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi (about 672–696), son of Vishnuvardhana II. His own grants call him Sarvalokasraya, 'asylum of all mankind', and his seal Vijayasiddhi. Only the later grants give the name Mangi-yuvaraja, and no source explains why the title yuvaraja stuck to it. Two of his grants survive; one of them, from Chendalur in the Ongole country, is dated 6 May 673. Three of his sons reigned after him: Jayasimha II, Kokkili and Vishnuvardhana III.

Inscriptions

Chendalur plates of Sarvalokasraya (Mangi-yuvaraja)

673 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Sarvalokasraya Vijayasiddhi, the Mangi-yuvaraja of later grants. They were dug up at Chendalur in the old Ongole taluk with a Pallava grant of the same village. They are dated on a lunar eclipse in the second year of his reign, which F. Kielhorn fixed as 6 May 673, and give the village of Chendarura in Kamma-rashtra to six Brahmins. E. Hultzsch edited them in 1906.

Chendalur plates of Kumaravishnu II

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant issued from Kanchipura in the second year of the Pallava king Kumaravishnu II. It gives a field of 432 pattikas (a land measure) in the village of Chendalura in Karmarashtra to the Brahman Bhavaskandatrata. It was found buried in a pot of paddy husk at Chendalur in the Ongole taluk, and E. Hultzsch edited it in 1906. With it he edited a grant of the same village by the Eastern Chalukya Sarvalokasraya of 673, which was reported found in the same way.

References

Sources (3)
  1. Archaeological Survey of India, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VIII (1905–06) (opens in a new tab), Archaeological Survey of India, 1906, pp. 233–238. E. Hultzsch, Chendalur Plates of Kumaravishnu II and of Sarvalokasraya. [Public domain]
  2. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil (tr. V. S. Swaminadha Dikshitar), The Pallavas (opens in a new tab), The author, Pondicherry, 1917, pp. 16. [Public domain]
  3. W. E. Johns, Gazetteer of the Nellore District, brought up to 1938, Vol. A (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1942, pp. 34. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]

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