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Srikakulam

Town on the Langulya river, formerly Chicacole. In 1908 it was the headquarters of a taluk of the Ganjam district. A hoard of six copper-plate grants dug up in the town is now in the Madras Museum. It includes several of the oldest grants of the Ganga kings of Kalinganagara. In the Qutb Shahi period the town was the capital of the Chicacole Sarkar.

Srikakulam (then Chicacole) is a town on the Langulya river.1 The Imperial Gazetteer (1908) describes it as the headquarters of a subdivision and taluk of the Ganjam district, “on the left bank of the Langulya 4 miles from its mouth”.1

Under the Muslim rulers

Under the Muslims the town was the capital of the Srikakulam Sarkar, one of the Northern Circars.1 Sher Muhammad Khan built its mosque in 1641 “from the materials of a demolished Hindu temple”.1 He was “the first Faujdar, or military governor, under the Kutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda”.1 The gazetteer adds that for about 180 years from about 1571 the country “was ruled from Chicacole by Muhammadans”.2

The copper plates

Robert Sewell’s Lists of Antiquities (1882) records that the town “is said to have been the earliest capital of the kingdom of Kalinga”.3 He describes the discovery of six copper-plate grants in a pot sunk in the ground.3 W. F. Grahame rescued them and gave them to the Madras Museum.3

J. F. Fleet and E. Hultzsch edited the plates.4 They include grants of the Ganga kings Indravarman and Devendravarman, issued from Kalinganagara.4 See the Chicacole plates of Devendravarman.

Arasavalli

At Arasavalli near the town, V. Rangacharya listed Telugu inscriptions of the Ganga king Anantavarmadeva in the Suryanarayana temple.5 Two of them are dated in his seventy-second year.5 See Anantavarman Chodaganga and the Eastern Gangas.

Footnotes

  1. Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 222 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 197 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  3. Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (1882), p. 7 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. E. Hultzsch, “Chicacole Plates of Gunarnava’s Son Devendravarman; the Year 183”, Epigraphia Indica III (1894–95), p. 130 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  5. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. I (1919), p. 682, Ganjam Nos. 135–137 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

Photos

People

Anantavarman Chodaganga

c. 1078–1146 CE

Eastern Ganga king of Kalinga, crowned in 1078 and still reigning in his 72nd regnal year (1146–47). He was a son of the Ganga king Rajaraja and of Rajasundari, a daughter of Kulottunga I, so he was a grandson of the Chola-Chalukya emperor whose armies invaded Kalinga in his reign. Dozens of his Telugu and Sanskrit inscriptions survive at Mukhalingam, Srikurmam, Simhachalam, Draksharama and other places in the north of the Telugu country. His grants trace the Ganga family back to Brahma.

Salabat Jang

1751–1761 CE

Third son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah I, raised to the throne of the Deccan by the French commander Bussy in 1751. Under Bussy's protection he defeated the Marathas and his elder brother Ghazi-ud-din, and in 1753 assigned the Northern Circars to the French. After Colonel Forde drove the French from the coast, he ceded Masulipatam to the English (1759). His brother Nizam Ali took power as his minister, deposed him in 1761 or 1762 and had him killed in prison about 1763.

Nizam Ali Khan (Asaf Jah II)

1761–1803 CE

Fourth son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah I. He pushed aside his brother Salabat Jang in 1761–62 and ruled the Deccan until his death at Hyderabad in 1803. In his reign the Northern Circars passed to the East India Company (1766, Guntur in 1788). The Nizam joined the British against Tipu Sultan, was defeated by the Marathas at Kharda (1795) and accepted a permanent subsidiary force (1798). To pay for it he gave up his Mysore gains, the later Ceded Districts of Rayalaseema (1800). He is the first Nizam buried at the Mecca Masjid.

Mubariz Khan (Khwaja Muhammad, Imad-ul-Mulk)

before 1724 CE

Last Mughal governor of Haidarabad (Hyderabad), which he ruled for nearly twelve years from about 1713. He came from Balkh and had governed Gujarat and Malwa. He fought the Marathas instead of paying them the chauth (a quarter of the revenue). He began the city wall of Hyderabad and held lands on the coast as far as Srikakulam (Chicacole). In 1724 the court at Delhi made him viceroy of the Deccan against Nizam-ul-Mulk. He was defeated and killed with two of his sons at Shakar Kheda in Berar on 11 October 1724 (Irvine's date).

Inscriptions

Chicacole plates of Devendravarman, son of Gunarnava

c. 681 CE

A copper-plate grant of the Ganga king Devendravarman, son of Gunarnava, issued from Kalinganagara and dated in the 183rd year of the Ganga reckoning. It is one of six sets of plates dug up together at Srikakulam (then Chicacole). It gives the village of Poppangika as an agrahara (Brahmin village) to six Brahmin brothers living at Kalinganagara. It shows an early use of a decimal zero beside the old number symbols.

References

Sources (4)
  1. Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Madras, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1908, pp. 197, 222. [Public domain]
  2. Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1882, pp. 7. [Public domain]
  3. E. Hultzsch (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. III (1894–95) (opens in a new tab), Archaeological Survey of India, 1895, pp. 130. E. Hultzsch, Chicacole plates of Devendravarman (No. 21). [Public domain]
  4. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency (collected till 1915), with Notes and References, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1919, pp. 682–683. [Public domain]

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