Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s5.13

c8.s5.13

Harivarmma, his son, next came to the throne, and he removed the capital to Taḷekkāḍ or Talakāḍ (Talavana-pura in Sanskrit), situated on the river Kāvērī in the south-east of the Mysore District. He is commonly described as having employed elephants in war, and having gained great wealth by the use of the bow. Two grants of his time have been found. The first (*IA.* viii. 212), obtained in Tanjore, gives his name in the Tamil form Arivarmma. It records a gift by him, in 247, of the Orekōḍu village in the Maisu-nāḍ Seventy (now Varakōḍu in the east of Mysore tāluq¹) under somewhat interesting circumstances. A Bauddha disputant named Vādimadagajēndra (a rutting elephant as an orator) in the pride of his learning affixed to the main door of the palace at Talavana-pura a *patra*² (as a challenge) in which he asserted the claim that he was the foremost scholar in logic, grammar, and all other branches of knowledge.³ Whereupon a Brāhman named Mādhava-bhaṭṭa put his pretensions to the proof (before the Court), and when the opponent speaker denied the existence of the soul, established its existence, and with the elephant-goad his speech forced him to crouch down (like a vanquished elephant). The king being pleased, gave the Brāhman the title Vādibhasimha (a lion to the elephant disputant) and with it the Orekōḍu village. Whatever objection may be taken to this inscription on palæographical or other grounds, it must be confessed that the details related in it are singularly in keeping with its professed period. The other grant of this king is in the Tagaḍūr plates (Nj 122) of the date 266. In this, a Gāvuṇḍa or farmer who had made important captures in a battle at Henjeṛu (now Hemāvati, on the northern border of Sīra tāluq) received as a reward the Appogāl village. Yet another record may be mentioned. This is Mb 157, the Muḍiyanūr Bāṇa plates of 338. On the back of the first plate is an erased Ganga grant, which, as far as it is legible, goes down to the time of Harivarmma, but no fresh information regarding him is to be obtained from it.