Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s5.21

c8.s5.21

The son born to Mādhava by the Kadamba princess is known as Avinīta. Several inscriptions state that he was crowned when an infant on his mother's lap. He may therefore have been a posthumous son, and his father evidently had a very long reign. Avinīta was brought up as a Jain, the learned Vijayakīrtti being his preceptor (Mr 72). The king himself is described as being the first among the learned, of unstinted liberality, and devoted to protecting the South in the maintenance of castes and religious orders (DB 68). The grant of his first year (Mr 72), which from DB 67 we can assign to 430, was made to two Arhad or Jain temples, one at Uranūr and the other at Perūr. In the latter case the grant consisted of a fourth part of the *karshāpana*¹ levied as outside customs. In DB 67, which is of his 29th year, 459, a Brāhman of Tippūr (in Doḍ-Ballāpur tāluq) was given a village called Mēlūr (perhaps the one in Sidlaghaṭṭa tāluq), with freedom from all the eighteen castes. This is an interesting allusion, as evidence of the antiquity of these *paṇas*, composed of the agricultural, artisan, and trading classes, who form the Right-hand and Left-hand factions. The king, it says, at this time held Brāhmans as supreme, and was devoted to the worship of Hara (Śiva). Still, in 466 he made a grant to a Jain, as recorded in the Mercara plates (Cg 1). From DB 68 we arrive at 482 for the termination of his reign, and seeing that he was crowned at or soon after his birth, this is not allowing an unreasonable time for him.