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Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t2: B. Western Cālukya

Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t2

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B. Western Cālukya

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The earliest specimen of the Western Cālukya character was, hitherto, supposed to be a grant by Pulakeçi, dated ç. 411 (or A. D. 489), and of which an abstract is given in the Journal of the R. Asiatic Society[^4). This has, however, been found by Mr. Fleet

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[^1): Second edition (1820) p. 3. The error is probably of native origin as this mark is called in Telugu—talakaṭṭu. [^2): See the last published Telugu Grammar by the Rev. A. Arden (1873) p. 7 where it is called a ‘*secondary*’ form of a. [^3): The origin of this name (which is also written Calukya, Callukya, Caulukya, Calikya and Calkya) is obscure. A grant of 1086 (E. of p. 21 *n.*) mentions a ‘Calukyagiri’ where Gaurī was worshipped (see next page). But the event to which this passage refers, must—if it ever occurred—be put about the 4th century A. D. or some seven hundred years before the date of the inscription which records it! I am unable to find any other traces of this hill; it may be one of the numerous mountains in Central India where barbarous rites (as described by Colebrooke and, in later times, by Forsyth) still prevail. The legend evidently belongs to a comparatively recent period in the history of the family, and when it had become of great consideration in Central India. The family appears to have been known even in Java; in a document of 841 A. D. an interesting list of names of countries occurs: “kliṅg, . . . gola, tjwalikā, malyalā, karṇake” . . . kliṅg=kaliṅga; gola is correctly copied from the original plate, but it must be for Cola; tjvalikā (cvalikā)=cālukya; malyalā=malayāḷa; karṇake may perhaps be read karṇāṭaka; anyhow, it is plain what is intended [Cohen-Stuart, “Kawi Oorkonden,” p. 8 (tekst) and 5 *b.*, 4 of the facsimile]. A purely mythical explanation of the name has been found (by Mr. Fleet) in an inscription; this derives the name from *culuka*=a water-pot! *I. A.* vi., p. 74. *Cfr.* also Vikramāṅkadevacarita I., 46, for the same derivation. [^4): Vol. v. pp. 343 flg. Mr. Fleet has sent me a photograph of a leaf. The Tamiḻ inscriptions of the 11th century (Tanjore and Seven Pagodas) call this kingdom “iraṭṭa-pāḍi (*i.e.* Reḍḍi-kingdom) seven and a half lakhs.”

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to be a recent forgery; the character of the writing, I find, makes this perfectly evident. The earliest I can use is, however, a grant on copper plate, of Maṅgaḷa of about 578 A. D. which is a little before the most flourishing period of the Cālukyas in the beginning of the seventh century A. D.¹ It is not the earliest known authentic grant of

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¹ The defeat of Harshavarddhana, the king of Kanoj, by a Cālukya which is satisfactorily established by Cunningham ("Reports" i., pp. 280-282), shows the rapid growth in power of the Cālukyas of Kalyāṇapura. This defeat was not, however, by Vikramāditya (as Genl. Cunningham states) but by Satyāçraya, his father, as is proved by several inscriptions. One (in possession of a Jain ācārya at Hyderabad) has: Çri-Pulakeçimahārājasya prapautraḥ....Çri-Kīrtivarmapṛi(thi)vīvallabhamahārājasya pautraḥ samarasamsaktasakalottarāpatheçvaraÇri-Harshavarddhanaparāja(yopala)bdhaparameçvarāparanāmadheyasya Satyāçrayaçripṛithivīvallabha..sya priyatanayaḥ etc. Another (photographed in the Mysore collection) has *nearly* the same phrase: ....Çri-Harshavarddhanaparājayopalabdhaparameçvarāparanāmadheyaḥ Satyāçrayaçripṛithivīvallabhamahādhirājaparameçvaras etc. This defeat must be put near the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century. The genealogy of the dynasty of these kings was first given by Sir W. Elliot in the *London Asiatic Society's Journal*; and his paper was afterwards reprinted with corrections in the *Madras Journal* (vol. vii., pp. 193-211). With a few additional corrections required by inscriptions since discovered, and some of which were pointed out by Lassen (I., A. K. iv.), also omitting the mythical beginnings of the dynasty, the table is as follows:—
1) A grant of 1086-7 A. D. (referred to as E on p. 21, n.) traces the Cālukya family to the Somavamça through a number of mythological personages and kings of Ayodhyā to a Vijayāditya who: vijigīshayā Daxiṇāpatham gatvā Trilocanapallavam adhixipya daivadurīhaya lokāmttaram agamat. Tasmin samkule purohitena vṛiddhāmātyaiç ca sārddham anta(r)vva(tī pa)tnī tasya Mahājavamuṛilemunāmāgrahāram upagamya tadvāstavyena Vishṇubhaṭṭasomayājinā duhitṛinirvviçesham abhiraxitā satī Vishṇuvarddhanan namdanam asūta; sā ca tasya kumārakasya k(ā)lakramopetāni karmāni k(ā)rayitvā tam avarddhayat; sa ca mātrā viditavṛittānto niggitya (? nirgatya) Calukyagirau Namdābhagavatīm Gaurīm ārādhya Kumāranārāyaṇamātṛigaṇāmç ca samttarpya çvet(a)tapatraikaçamkhapañcamahāçabdādīni kulakramāgatāni nix(i)ptāni ******** samādāya Kadambagaṅgādibhūmipān nirjitya SetuNarmadāmadhyam daxiṇāpathan pālayām āsa. Tasya Siddijayādityo Vishṇuvarddhanabhūpatiḥ Pallavānvayajātāyā Mahādevyāç ca nandanaḥ. | tatsutaḥ Pulakeçivallabhaḥ; tatputraḥ Kīrttivarmmā. Tasya tanayaḥ .... Satyāçrayavallabhendrasya bhrātā Kubjavishṇuvarddhano dvādaça varshāṇi Veṅgīdeçam apālayat etc.
2) This date is due to Profr. Eggeling.
3) See Mr. Fleet's remarks *Indian Antiquary*, vi. p. 73.

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o It is necessary to remark that this genealogy and dates can only be regarded as provisional, not as definite.

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this dynasty; for there is an inscription of Maṅgalīçvara *d.* ç. 500 in the Bādāmi cave, but this is not accessible to me. The Aihoḷe inscription is *d.* ç. 556 as finally read by Mr. Fleet¹).

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¹ ^1) I owe a facsimile of Maṅgala's inscription to Mr. Fleet; he has edited it in the *Indian Antiquary*, vol. vii., p. 161.

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All these inscriptions are in an upright square hand with the letters very well formed; the forgeries (of which there are several) do not imitate this style, but resemble the inscriptions of their real dates.

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So far the flourishing older dynasty of the Cālukyas, which after Vikramāditya II. appears to have been for a time almost overthrown by feudatōries such as the Rāshtrakūṭa, Kālabhurya, and Yādava chiefs, and the history of this kingdom is, thus, very obscure for the eighth and ninth centuries. With Tailapa the restorer of the Cālukya power in the later dynasty, all once more becomes tolerably certain, especially as regards the dates of the reigns. A very poetical account of the first sovereigns of this line is given in Bilhaṇa's Vikramāṅkadevacarita; it is often contradicted in details by the Coḷa inscriptions.

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Mr. Fleet has pointed out (*Indian Antiquary*, vii., p. 20) that the form 'Cālukya' was used by this later dynasty.

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A feature common to all the later inscriptions of the Western Cālukyas but which does not occur in any others, is a marked slope of the letters to the right. The Eastern Cālukya character is, on the other hand, remarkably square and upright; this distinction is quite sufficient, after 650 A. D., to show the origin of an inscription.

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Somewhat later, about 700 A. D., is the beginning of the change in writing subscript vowels which afterwards formed the chief difference between the Telugu-Canarese alphabets on the one hand, and the Grantha on the other—a tendency to bring the marks for **ā**, **ē** and **ō** from the side of the consonant to which they are attached to the top, and again to bring the mark for a subscript form from underneath the consonant to its right side. The character in Pl. iv. (690 A. D.) uses almost universally the older form (cfr. **ku**, **tu**, etc. in Pl. iv.).

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Only the cursive forms of **a** and **ā** occur in the later inscriptions of the Western Cālukyas after about 650 A. D., so far as they are known to me, and this again distinguishes them from those of the Eastern dynasty which preserve most generally the older forms of these letters up to the middle of the tenth century, though we find both forms co-existing in inscriptions of the eighth and ninth centuries.

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The W. Cālukya method of writing **r** above a following consonant is primitive, like the Veṅgi, and differs from the Cera form (see Pl. ii.); it did not last long, for about 700 A. D. the **r** is made clearer by a slope to the right, and this (between 1200 and 1300 A. D.) developed into the modern Telugu form, and then, at last, was written separate to the right of the consonant it precedes in utterance.

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**Ch** appears at the time of the oldest South-Indian inscriptions to have had the form of ⋈ (cfr. pl. iv. **ččh**); in the modern alphabets this is quite lost, and this letter has the ordinary form of **č** with the addition of a small stroke underneath, such as marks the aspirate in ఛ, ಛ etc.

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Interesting as the inscriptions of the Western Cālukyas are historically, owing to the synchronisms with events in the history of Northern India that they exhibit, they are but of little importance in the literary history of the South of India; for it is certain that the kings of Kalyāṇapura always favored the culture of the north¹.

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¹ Vidyāpati of Someçvaradeva (Āhavamalla) I. (1040-1069) was Bilhaṇa, a native of Cashmere.

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With the temporary fall of this dynasty the Western Cālukya alphabet appears to have gone entirely out of use².

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² Several of the inscriptions of this earlier dynasty have already been published in the *Journal of the R. Asiatic Society of London*, and in the *Bombay Journal*. (See for the last: Vol. ii., 1-12, pp. 262-3; Vol. iii., pp. 203-213. The first of the grants described belongs to the reign of Vijayāditya, and is dated, ç. 627 = A. D. 705. The second is dated in the tenth year of Vijayāditya; the third appears to belong to a feudatory). Facsimiles of some from the sixth to about the fourteenth century are given in the "Collection of Photographic Copies of Inscriptions in Dharwar and Mysore" published by the Committee of the Architectural Antiquities of Western India. See also I. A. i., p. 80 (Tribhuvanamalla 1083 A. D.); p. 141 (? Someçvaradeva ii., 875 A. D.); iii., p. 305 (Maṅgalīça of 578 A. D.); iv., p. 278 (Jayasimha ii., A. D. 1028); v., p. 67 (Pulakeçi ii., 585 A. D.); p. 342 (in the reign of Vikramāditya, 1093 A. D.); vi., pp. 72-8 (Satyāçraya, 613 A. D. and a doubtful one of Vikramāditya i., without date); pp. 85-94. (Vinayāditya, 690 A. D.; do: 692 A. D.; do: 695 A. D.); p. 137-142 (Vikramādityatribhuvanamalla, A. D. 1096; Jagadekamalla, ? 1139 A. D.)—nearly all by Mr. Fleet.

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The earlier Kadamba inscriptions are in a character very near what is here described.

Cites (2)