Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c14.5

c14.5

According to Sk 186 there were no Brāhmans in the South in the time of Mukkaṇṇa Kadamba, the third century. Having sought diligently for them throughout the region and finding none, he went without delay to the North, and from the Ahichchatra agrahāra (said to be in the Bareilly District) procured a number of Brāhman families (see also Nj 269) whom he settled in the agrahāra of Sthānakundūr (Tālgunda), to the north of Belgāmi (Shikārpur tāluq). From his family sprang the royal Kadamba line, as related in the Tālgunda pillar inscription (Sk 176). On the other hand, it seems that there must have been *some* Brāhmans before, for the Śātavāhana grant of the first or second century on the Malavalli pillar (Sk 263) was made as a Brāhman endowment. But they may have left the country, as those above-mentioned from the north are said to have attempted to do. In the east, tradition attributes the introduction of Brāhmans to Mukunti Pallava, who is also of the third century. It is evident from the Tālgunda pillar inscription that Brāhman professors had gained a great reputation in Kāñchī, the Pallava capital, when Mayūraśarmma, the founder of the Kadamba dynasty, went there at about that period in order to complete his studies.