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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Erragudipadu

Village in the former Kamalapuram taluk of Kadapa district. A stone beside its Chennakesava temple carries an inscription of an Erikal-Mutturaju of the Telugu Cholas of Renandu. Its editors dated it to the late 6th century, and it is among the earliest records written in Telugu.

Photograph of the upper inscribed side of a tapering stone, eight lines of bold early Telugu-Kannada letters, with line numbers 2 to 8 on both sides.
Photograph of the upper inscribed side of a tapering stone, eight lines of bold early Telugu-Kannada letters, with line numbers 2 to 8 on both sides. · K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, 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

Location

Erragudipadu lies in what was the Kamalapuram taluk of the Kadapa (then Cuddapah) district.1 It is in the old Renandu country of the Telugu Cholas, not far from Kalamalla.1 It is not the Erragudi of Asoka’s edicts.

The Telugu Chola stone

A stone standing to the right of the Chennakesava temple bears a Telugu inscription in bold, large letters on two of its sides.1 The inscription records a grant of land to a Brahmana in the reign of an Erikal-Mutturaju, and princes called Navapriya Mutturaju and Vallava Dukaraju witnessed it.12

K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya edited the inscription in 1956, and they found its letters almost the same as those of the Kalamalla pillar of Dhananjaya.12 They dated it to the last quarter of the 6th century or a little later.12 See the Erragudipadu inscription and the Telugu Cholas of Renadu.

Footnotes

  1. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 225 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 227 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

Photos

Inscriptions

Erragudipadu inscription of Erikal-Mutturaju

c. 590 CE

An early Telugu stone record beside the Chennakesava temple at Erragudipadu in the Kamalapuram country. Its letters are almost the same as those of the Kalamalla pillar, and its editors dated it to the last quarter of the 6th century or a little later. It records a tax-free grant of 24 measures of land to a Brahmana in the reign of an Erikal-Mutturaju. The witnesses included a Mutturaju called Navapriya and a 'Vallava Dukaraju', perhaps a Pallava crown prince.

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. 225–228. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah (No. 42), inscription B. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]

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