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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Dommara-Nandyala

Village in the former Jammalamadugu taluk of Kadapa district. Here a ploughman found the copper plates of the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara's tenth year in a sealed pot. The plates were edited in 1956.

Photograph of a round seal soldered to the ring that held the plates; a rampant maned animal in high relief, its left paw raised, fills the face of the seal.
Photograph of a round seal soldered to the ring that held the plates; a rampant maned animal in high relief, its left paw raised, fills the face of the seal. · H. K. Narasimhaswami, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (Government of India); plate by B. Ch. Chhabra, printed by the Survey of India, Calcutta (opens in a new tab) · Public domain in India

The copper plates

In 1940–41 H. K. Narasimhaswami of the Government Epigraphist’s office was copying stone inscriptions at Dommara-Nandyala, in the Jammalamadugu taluk.1 There he was shown three copper plates with a lion seal.1 Some years earlier a villager ploughing a field had struck a sealed earthen pot, in which the plates lay in paddy husk.1 The owner learnt that they recorded only a gift of land, so he gave them to the office.1

The plates record a grant by the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara, in his tenth year, to five Brahmanas, and Narasimhaswami dated them to the middle of the 8th century.23 See the Dommara-Nandyala plates and Punyakumara.

Footnotes

  1. H. K. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates of Punyakumara; 10th Year”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 268 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 269 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  3. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 270 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

Photos

People

Punyakumara

c. 625 CE

Telugu Chola king of Renandu and Hiranyarashtra, the best-documented ruler of the family. He is known from two sets of Sanskrit copper plates (Malepadu, fifth year; Dommara-Nandyala, tenth year) and from Telugu stone records at Tippaluru, Ramesvaram and Veludurti. His titles imitate those of the Pallava Mahendravarman I. Editors have dated him about 625, about 740 and near the end of the 8th century.

Inscriptions

Dommara-Nandyala plates of Punyakumara

c. 750 CE

Three Sanskrit copper plates with a lion seal, found in a sealed pot at Dommara-Nandyala in the Jammalamadugu taluk and edited in 1956. They record a grant by the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara, in his tenth year, to five Brahmanas. They repeat the family tree of the Malepadu plates and correct the name of their writer. Their editor said they contain the earliest inscriptional reference in south India to Siva as Lakutapani, and he dated them to the middle of the 8th century.

References

Sources (1)
  1. B. Ch. Chhabra and N. Lakshminarayan Rao (eds.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXVII (1947–48) (opens in a new tab), Archaeological Survey of India, 1956, pp. 268–270. H. K. Narasimhaswami, Dommara-Nandyala Plates of Punyakumara; 10th Year (No. 44). Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]

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