Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t3: C. Eastern Cālukya

Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t3

Language: English

C. Eastern Cālukya

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In the early history of the Dravidian part of India, this dynasty is of the greatest importance, but as yet no account of it has been published. It succeeded the Vengi kings early in the seventh century, not long after the famous defeat of Harshavardhana by Satyāçraya of Kalyāṇapura, and was founded by his younger brother¹). In the

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¹ The dynasty is given as follows in a number of inscriptions which I have been able to consult; nearly all of which (an unparalleled circumstance in India) give the number of years that the several kings reigned. A. (from Masulipatam) *d.* 5th year of Vishṇuvardhana II. B. (in the Nellore Sub-Collector's Office on five plates) contains a grant by Yuddhamalla (about 950). C. on five plates (? the Godāvari Collector's Office) *d.* ç. 867 = 945 A. D., being in the reign of Ammarāja. D. a grant of Kulottuṅga-Coḷa-Deva, *d.* 1085 A. D. E. = a grant by Kulottuṅga in the 23rd year of his reign (= 1087) from Pittapur. F. a grant by Kulottuṅga (Vīracoḷadeva) son of Vikramacoḷadeva, *d.* ç. 1056 = 1134 A. D. The number of years each king reigned follows in () his name. Those names which are not of actual sovereigns of Veṅgi are in spaced type.

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1) B. D. E. F. make Jayasimha reign 33 years.
2) A. "*Çrīkīrttivarmaṇaḥ* pranaptā.....*Çrīvishṇuvarddhanamahārājasya* napt(ā).....*Çrījayasiṃhavallabhamahārājasya* priyabhrātur anekayuddhālaṅkṛtaçarīrasye 'ndrabhaṭṭārakasya priyatanayaḥ çrīmān Vishṇuvarddhanamahārājaḥ" etc. D. F. make Indrabhaṭṭāraka reign for seven days.
3) D. has: "*tasya* (*i. e.* Kokkileḥ) jyeshṭo bhrātā tam ucchāṭya saptatriṃçat.

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inscriptions of this dynasty their territory is often called Veṅgi, and it forms the second and last Veṅgi dynasty.

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Vimalāditya was succeeded by Rājarāja Coḷa owing (it is stated) to an intermarriage of the Coḷas and Kaliṅga Cālukyas, which really occurred. His son Kulottuṅga succeeded him in 1064 A. D. (*Madras Journal*, xiii., Pt. 2, p. 40), and as Rājarāja reigned 41 years (D. E. and F.) this makes the date of the end of Vimalāditya's reign to be 1023 A. D. Both D. and E. *explicitly* term Rājarāja son of Vimalāditya. For the passage in E. see note 4 below. The Tamil inscriptions (*e. g.* the inscription at Tanjore) state that Veṅgināḍu was conquered; Indian history shows that such marriages as the one mentioned above, were *always* the result of a conquest.

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¹ D. F. make his reign last 36 years. E. makes it 26.

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² C. F. have: dvyardhavarshāṇi; B.—Ashṭādaça māsā(n); D.—dvyardhavarsham. E. has: adhyardhavarsham; is this a mistake in copying an older document?

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³ E. has eleven months.

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⁴ D. E.—Tāḍapa. E. omits the length of this reign.

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⁵ D. tam ucchātya diçād Ammaraj(ā)nujo Rājabhīmaḥ dvādaça varshāṇi.

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⁶ In D. only the years are clearly legible. E. has after Ammarāja II. ta(j)jyeshṭo Dānā * * as trimçat; tatputra(*h*) Çaktivarmā dvādaça; tadanujaVimalādityas sapta; tatputro Rājarājadeva ekacatvāriṁçat; tatputra(*h*) çrīKulottuṅgacoḍadeva ekonapañcāçat etc. E. has: tatsūnur Ammarājaḥ pañcaviṁçatim; tasya dvaimāturo Dānanṛipaḥ trīṇi; tatas saptaviṁçativarshāṇi devadurdhayā Veṅgimahīr anāyikā 'bhavat; tato Danānnavasutaḥ Çaktivarmanṛipo dvāda(ça) varshāṇi bhūm apālayat; tatas tadanujas sapta vatsarān bhūtavatsalaḥ Vimalāditya (*sic*) bhūpālayāmāsa medinī(m) | tattanayānayaçālī jayalaxmīdhama Rājanarendraḥ catvāriṁçatam abdān ekam ca punar mahīm apālayad akhilām etc. The causes of the time of anarchy at the end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th century are not known, but may be fairly attributed to the Coḷa invasions. At the beginning of the 11th century (see Tennent's "Ceylon" i., p. 402) the Coḷas had conquered that island, and not long after they must have effected the successful invasion of Bengal which is recorded in the great inscription at Tanjore. C. carries the genealogy down to Ammarāja, and it is dated 945 A. D. in his reign. The grants D. and E. would make the beginning of his reign four and six years respectively after this date. The discrepancy is not, however, sufficient to throw doubts on the list given above, and is probably owing to the uncertainty of the Çaka era. It is obvious that the number of entire years of most reigns only being given, the list cannot be *absolutely* correct. The total of the reigns of sovereigns of this dynasty amounts to about 403 years, which brings the first year of Kubja Vishṇuvardhana to about 620 A. D., and as his elder brother Satyāçraya reigned in Kalyāṇapura about 600 A. D., this date is by no means improbable. It is nevertheless impossible to suppose that the Kaliṅga Cālukyas were established in the old Veṅgi kingdom for some years after that date. Thus the grant printed in pl. xxvii. was found far north (in Vizagapatam), and it seems probable that the Cālukyas first seized the northern part of the Telugu sea-coast, and then conquered the south. The eclipse mentioned in the earliest known grant of this dynasty (see App. C. and plate xxvii.) shows that Vishṇuvardhana was reigning in 622 A. D.

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This dynasty is of the greatest importance so far as S. India is concerned, for it can be traced with some certainty, and affords clues to the dates of important events.

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The earliest inscription I have seen, is a grant by the first sovereign Vishṇuvardhana I.; it is on copper-plates, and was found in the Vijayanagaram Zamindary in 1867 (Pl. xxvii.). Except in regularity and neatness, the character of the writing of this document differs very little from that already described as the Veṅgi character, and does not exhibit any cursive forms; these first appear in the latter part of the seventh century.

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The chief distinctions between the characters used for the Western and Eastern Kaliṅga¹ inscriptions have already been given. As the two countries were under branches of the same royal family about the same periods, it is convenient to call the respective characters after the two dynasties of the Cālukyas; but it must be recollected that there is no real connection between them palæographically, except so far as their common origin through the ‘Cave character’ is in question.

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¹ Kaliṅga, or rather Tri-kaliṅga is a very old name for the greater part of the Telugu Coast on the Bay of Bengal. The latest mention I know, is in the grant of Yuddhamalla (already referred to as B.), which says of this king (about 950 A. D.) “*Veṅgībhuvaḥ* patir abhū(t) Trikaliṅgakoṭṭeḥ” (4 line 3). Hiouen-Thsang also mentions Kaliṅga (7th cent.). Pliny (vi., 67 of the edition published by Teubner) says: “Insula in Gange est magnæ amplitudinis gentem continens unam, nomine Modogalingam.” Dr. Caldwell (Comp. Gr. pp. 64-5) took this to be for the old Telugu, ‘Modoga and liṅga’ and to mean “three-liṅgas”, and, thus, accepted the native etymology of ‘Telugu’. There can be no doubt that it is merely Mūḍu-Kaliṅga or Three Kaliṅgas, and has nothing to do with liṅga. The native etymology of ‘Telugu’ first occurs, I believe, in the Kārikā of Ātharvaṇācārya who copied and *quotes* Hemacandra, and therefore could not have lived before the thirteenth century. In his second edition, however, Dr. Caldwell gives up this explanation (p. 32). ‘Telugu’ is evidently from a common Dravidian root √teḷ or √tel[^1)] which means ‘to be clear or bright’, and the Tri-liṅga theory is certainly not supported (as Dr. Caldwell appears to think) by Ptolemy’s Triglypton or Trilingon (vii., 2, 23), which is most probably a copyist’s error for Trikaliṅgon. At all events a derivative of ‘glypho’ could never mean liṅga. Cunningham (“Ancient Geography of India,” p. 519) recognizes three Kaliṅgas, and rightly doubts the name having anything to do with liṅga.

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The decided tendency of the Eastern Cālukya character to preserve archaic forms, clearly distinguishes it from the character used under the Western dynasty. This last seems to have been affected by the North-Indian early Nāgarī, as it almost copies the horizontal stroke at the top of letters used in the latter. It also uses cursive forms to a large extent.

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1) Tamil: ḷ=Tel: l; Dr. Caldwell “Comp. Gr.” p. 194. A. D. Campbell suggested this derivation: Tel. Gr. p. vi.

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The Plates iii., iv. and v., if compared, will show how correct is the account by Hiouen-Thsang (about 640 A. D.) of the writing used in his time in the Deccan and on the sea-coast. He says¹: "La langue et la prononciation diffèrent beaucoup de celles de l'Inde centrale; mais la forme des caractères est en grande partie la même."

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¹ "Voyages des Pèlerins Bouddhistes," iii., p. 105. In 1031 A. D. Albīrūnī mentioned this character which he called 'andri'. [^2): *Cfr.* Whitney's remarks: "Atharvaveda Prātiçākhya," p. 140 on the 'characteristic tendency' of the Hindu Grammarians 'to arbitrary and artificial theorizing'.

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All unquestionable grants by kings of both the Cālukya dynasties that I have met with are in Sanskrit. The later they are, the greater is the neglect of the minute rules for orthography laid down by the Sanskrit grammarians, especially as regards the use of the bindu. I shall give a summary of the results that I have ascertained, further on, in describing the modern alphabets used in the Telugu and Canarese countries. (p. 29.) It is, perhaps, to be regretted that editors of Sanskrit texts, in these days, are in the habit of restoring exactly the orthography of the earliest grammarians; if we rightly do so in the case of Vedic texts where the MSS. justify this course, as well as the fact that we have here to deal with relics of a time when Sanskrit was a living language, the case of most texts is quite different; they were written long after Sanskrit had become a dead language, and represent no real pronunciation; to complicate the orthography of such texts is unmeaning pedantry, and can lead to no good result[^2). It is certain that their authors (often profound grammarians) never followed the primitive orthography—why should foreign editors in the present day? The oldest inscriptions (*e. g.* Girnar) use the bindu for **m** in the cases where it does not represent **m** before **h**, and this is the only exception.

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I may, however, here properly call attention to the remarkable practical results of the minute studies of the early Indian grammarians as regards the analysis of Sanskrit phonetics. When the Brahmans from the North of India introduced literary culture to the Dravidians (except probably the Tamil race) and to the Polynesians, they came armed with the results of these studies which might seem of not the least practical value, but it would be difficult to find a clearer instance of the ultimate practical utility of the most recondite scientific research; for they were thus able, in what was certainly a very short space of time, to furnish a number of foreign and uncultivated languages with admirably exact *phonetic* systems of writing, and to this alone is to be attributed the rapid growth of indigenous literatures among those peoples. The merit of this work will be more apparent, if one compares it with early attempts of Europeans in the same way.

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The monstrosities of the English are, unhappily, too well known, but there is a singular example in a book written by an Italian of learning and culture, who was one of the first in modern times to travel in Western India—L. Varthema. He knew Malayāḷam well, and gives several specimens of it; the following sentence will do for my purpose: “Matile matile: gnan ciatu poi”. This he explains by “non piu non piu chio son morto,”¹ and it represents the Mal. മതി മതി ഞാൻ ചത്തു പോയി maδi maδi ńān čattu pōyi. A knowledge of the Italian pronunciation would perhaps enable any one to utter this in a way intelligible to the natives of Malabar, but the value of the native letters being once known, no difficulty could occur. So if we take Father Estevâo’s transcriptions of Koṅkaṇī², and the Dutch way of writing Malay³ both of about 1600 A. D., their inferiority to the Indian adaptations is evident, though all are really very well done. Nor were the men who adapted the Sanskrit alphabet to the Dravidian languages and the Javanese, mere mechanical workmen, they could add the necessary new signs to some extent as will appear in the course of this work. They often, however, used Sanskrit letters to express others which are, phonetically, different, though similar. (App. A.)

Cites (1)

Tanjore — inscription (SII 4.1289) — Tamil