The Colas c9.7

c9.7

Few of these inscriptions are purely historical in aim and character. The one at Tiruvēndipuram⁷ recording in detail the tribulations of Rājarāja III and the relief he obtained from the intercession of his Hoysaḷa contemporary, is the most considerable among the handful of purely historical inscriptions. Generally speaking, inscriptions record gifts and endowments of a public or private nature, usually to temples, *maṭhas* and Brahmans; sometimes the construction of a temple or its renovation, or the setting up of a new image forms the subject of an inscription. To provide for the maintenance of a lamp in a temple was a common method of earning religious merit for oneself or of expiating an offence. This was done by gifts of money or cattle calculated at so much or so many per lamp, and it was possible for two or more persons to endow a lamp jointly and apportion the merit among themselves in accordance with the share contributed by each. Often the lamps were to burn throughout the day and night, to be perpetual, (*nandā viḷakku*);⁸ but day-lamps, night-lamps for the occasions when *pūja* was performed (*śandi*) were also known.⁹ When the lamps were provided for by gifts of cattle, the expression ‘*śāvā-mūvā-ppērāḍu*’ invariably occurs, and it means literally ‘the big sheep that heither die nor age.’ That this was only a formal way of expressing the permanence of the endowment becomes clear from the use of the same expression even where cows, and not sheep, are given. Moreover, if for any reason the original herd went down in numbers, and in one instance a herd of fifty cows was reduced to twenty-six in less than three years,¹⁰ the fact was taken into account in assessing the obligations of the herdsmen for the future. Among the donors we find not only kings and their officials, but severai corporations including occupational and commercial guilds, caste organisations, military groups, and village assemblies, and many private individuals, men and women. The class of courtesans, the *dēvaraḍiyār*, ‘servants of the Gods’, often made considerable benefactions to temples which were suitably recognised by privileges of a hereditary nature being conferred on them in relation to the services and festivals in the temples concerned.