History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c17.s1.t1.16

c17.s1.t1.16

161. These Chuṭu kings, the Subordinate Āndhras of the Purāṇas, being only a branch of the imperial dynasty, throw light on the caste of the Sātavāhanas. I have shown elsewhere² that the imperial Āndhras were Brahmins by caste. The description of the branch family confirms that view. Their gotra [stock] was ‘Mānavya’, essentially a Brahmin gotra and it was so recognised even after their time. In Mysore, Shimoga district, at Maḷavaḷḷi there was a Śiva shrine presided over by Maṭṭapaṭṭi-Deva to whom a Chuṭu king dedicated an estate and placed it as a Brahma-deya grant in the hands of a Brahmin called the Hāritiputra Koṇḍamāna of the Kauṇḍinya gotra. This gift is recorded on a six-sided pillar which was lying on the ground at Maḷavaḷḷi.³ The name and description of the Chuṭu king are: Vaijayantipura-rājā Mānavya-sagotto Hāritiputto Viṇhu Kadda-Chuṭu-kulānanda-Sātakaṇṇi, who had issued his order to his Mahāvallabha Rajjuka. This gift was evidently resumed by a subsequent government. A Kadamba king subsequently renewed the grant—‘with a very glad mind’⁴ (parituṭṭheṇa)’—‘for the second time’ giving to a descendant of Koṇḍamāna, a maternal uncle of the king and a Kauśikiputra. The grant covered the old property and an addition of twelve new villages, all specified by name, and the gift was publicly registered on the same pillar. The gift by the previous donor is described in this as ‘Śiva[Khada]vammaṇā Mānavya-sagotteṇa Hāritiputteṇa Vaijayanti-patinā puvva-dattitti’. Śiva Khada v a m m a n here which is put in the instrumental (as opposed to the Kadamba king who is placed in the prathamā), is the former king who had made the gift (puvvadatta). He is described with the same titles as in the inscription of Vishnu Skanda Śātakarṇi. It was a common practice in those days to add the word Śiva as a mere honorific before names. The king's name, according to his mother's inscription at Banavasi, was Śiva-Khada-Nāga-Siri, which at Kanheri, according to the same authority, is Khamda Nāga Sātaka. The word Śiva, therefore, was only honorific. Sāta and Sāti stand for Svāti which the Purāṇas give with several names of the Andhras. Svāti means 'sword'. His mother was the daughter of Vishnu-Skanda, spelt as Viṇhu-Kada (or, Kada) and Viṇhu Kadda, of the Chuṭu dynasty, who is also given the name Sātakaṇṇi in the Banavasi inscription. The former gift was actually made and recorded not by the Hāritiputra Śiva Skanda varman,¹ the lord of Vaijayantī, but by his grandfather Vishnu Skanda (Viṇhu Kadda²) Sātakarṇi. And when the second inscription mentions that the Kadamba king having heard that a gift had been made by Śiva Skanda-varman, 'with a glad heart' makes the gift a second time, it means that a confusion was made between the names of the grandfather and grandson; instead of writing the grandfather's name the grandson's name was written by mistake.³