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Mayidavolu

Village about twelve miles east of Narasaraopet, formerly in the Kistna and later the Guntur district, where the Prakrit copper plates of the Pallava crown prince Sivaskandavarman, the earliest Pallava charter, were dug up in 1899 on the site of an abandoned village with the ruins of a small old temple.

Collotype of a worn, elliptical copper seal under the printed label "Mayidavolu Plates (Vol. VI. No. 8)"; a raised couchant animal is faintly visible across the upper middle.
Collotype of a worn, elliptical copper seal under the printed label "Mayidavolu Plates (Vol. VI. No. 8)"; a raised couchant animal is faintly visible across the upper middle. · E. Hultzsch (Epigraphia Indica, Government of India); collotype by Rommler & Jonas, Dresden (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

Mayidavolu is a small village twelve miles east of Narasaraopet, which was the headquarters of a taluk of the Krishna (then Kistna) district when E. Hultzsch described it in 1901.1 G. Jouveau-Dubreuil placed it in the Guntur district, on the southern bank of the Krishna.2

The Pallava plates

About the middle of 1899 a man digging in a field on the site of an abandoned village north of Mayidavolu found a set of copper plates. The site, about four acres in extent, contained the ruins of a small old temple.1 The plates were the Prakrit grant of the Pallava crown prince Sivaskandavarman, issued from Kanchipura to his officer at Dhannakada about the village of Viripara in Andhrapatha.3 J. Ramayya brought them to notice, and their owner, Mayidavolu Jaya Ramayya, later gave them to the Madras Museum.13 See the Mayidavolu plates.

Footnotes

  1. E. Hultzsch, “Mayidavolu Plates of Sivaskandavarman”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1900–01), p. 84 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The Pallavas (1917), p. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  3. Hultzsch, “Mayidavolu Plates of Sivaskandavarman” (1901), p. 85 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

Photos

People

Sivaskandavarman (Pallava)

c. 250–275 CE

Earliest Pallava king known from his own charters. As crown prince he sent the Mayidavolu plates from Kanchipura to his officer at Dhannakada (Amaravati), granting a village in Andhrapatha, the Telugu country. As king he issued the Hirahadagalli plates and claimed the horse sacrifice. His date is disputed: from the early 3rd century to the middle of the 4th.

Inscriptions

Mayidavolu plates of Sivaskandavarman

c. 250 CE

A Prakrit copper-plate grant issued from Kanchipura by the Pallava crown prince Sivaskandavarman to his official at Dhannakada (Amaravati). It gives the village of Viripara in Andhrapatha, the Telugu country, to two Brahmans. It was found in 1899 at Mayidavolu near Narasaraopet and edited by E. Hultzsch in 1901. It is the earliest Pallava copper-plate charter, and it shows the Pallavas ruling as far as the Krishna.

References

Sources (2)
  1. E. Hultzsch (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VI (1900–01) (opens in a new tab), Government of India, Calcutta, 1901, pp. 84–85. E. Hultzsch, Mayidavolu Plates of Sivaskandavarman. [Public domain]
  2. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil (tr. V. S. Swaminadha Dikshitar), The Pallavas (opens in a new tab), The author, Pondicherry, 1917, pp. 1. [Public domain]

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