Indian Epigraphy c16.s2.115

c16.s2.115

Sometimes particular feudatory titles were popular in particular areas. Thus a number of dignitaries in the dominions of the Ikṣvākus of the Krishna-Guntur region enjoyed the title Talavara or Mahātalavara, their wives being similarly called Mahātalavarī. Although the wife of an official like Mahāsenāpati is often found to enjoy the designation Mahāsenāpatnī,² the large number of persons enjoying the above designation would suggest that Talavara in these cases indicates a title of nobility and not merely an official designation. Vinaya-vijaya’s Subodhikā commentary on the Jain Kalpasūtra explains it as tuṣṭa-bhūpāla-pradatta-paṭṭa-bandha-vibhūṣita-rājasthānīya, i. e. a subordinate ruler (or viceroy) favoured by a turban by his master, and this meaning is suitable here,³ even though Hariṣeṇa’s Bṛhatkathākośa (931-32 A. D.) uses Talāra, apparently the same as Talavara, to indicate the administrator of a city or the prefect of the city police.⁴ In the age of the Śātavāhanas, certain feudatories enjoyed the title Mahābhoja (from Bhoja or Bhojaka meaning ‘a Jāgīrdār’) and their wives were called Mahābhojī.⁵ Subordinate rulers of the Kannaḍa-speaking region often called themselves Ammana (or Appana)-gandha-vāraṇa (‘the musk-elephant of the father’), Ayyana-gandhavāraṇa (‘the musk-elephant of the grandfather’), Ayyana-siṅga (‘the lion of the grandfather’), Aṇṇana-siṅga (‘the lion of the brother’), Śaraṇāgata-vajrapañjara (‘the impregnable shelter for one who seeks for it’), etc.