Greetings! Satyāśraya Vallabhendra Pulakeśin II was eager to adorn the lineage of the majestic Calukyas—who are of the Mānavya gotra which is praised by the entire world, who are sons of Hāriti, who attained kingship by the grace of Kauśikī’s boon, who are protected by the band of Mothers, who were deliberately appointed to kingship by Lord Mahāsena, to whom the realms of adversaries instantaneously submit at the mere sight of the superior Boar emblem they have acquired by the grace of the divine Nārāyaṇa, and whose bodies have been hallowed through washing in the purificatory ablutions avabhr̥tha of the Aśvamedha sacrifice. His brother Kubja Viṣṇuvardhana reigned for eighteen years. His son Jayasiṁha Vallabha I, for thirty-three years. His younger brother Indra Bhaṭṭāraka’s dear son Viṣṇurāja Viṣṇuvardhana II, for nine years. His son Maṅgi Yuvarāja, for twenty-five years. His son Jayasiṁha Vallabha II, the shelter of the complete world sakala-lokāśraya, for thirteen years. His younger brother by a different mother, Kokkili, for six months. His elder brother Viṣṇuvardhana III, for thirty-seven years. His son Vijayāditya I, for nineteen years. His son Viṣṇurāja Viṣṇuvardhana IV, for thirty-six years. His dear son was Vijayāditya II.
After he Vijayāditya II, having reigned for forty-one years, passed on to heaven, his son Viṣṇurāja Viṣṇuvardhana V completed two autumns as king.See the commentary for some thoughts on this awkward stanza. The original stanza that I hypothesise there would have much the same meaning except that it would claim forty years as Vijayāditya II’s reign, and would set up the completion of Viṣṇuvardhana V’s reign as an adverb of time for the following stanza rather than completing the sentence here.
His eldest son, a pre-eminent hero, knows his own nature and does his duty. He has even presided over the royal might lakṣmī of the Vallabha the Rāṣṭrakūṭas in negotiations goṣṭha.This is another extremely awkward stanza in the original. I translate the text with the fairly straightforward emendations noted in the apparatus for line 12. To make sense of the tortuous sentence, I assume from the historical context that the claim being made is that Vijayāditya III was authorised to dispose of some funds and/or troops of his Rāṣṭrakūṭa suzerain. However, my intuition is that the first hemistich was meant to be intelligible in itself (calling Vijayāditya an eminent hero who presided over assembly meetings), while the second hemistich was meant to claim that he made the lakṣmī of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas subject to his own will (implying a victory over the Rāṣṭrakūṭas). But to obtain this purport from the stanza as received and emendable in good conscience, grammar would have to be twisted far beyond the conventions of non-standard Sanskrit.
He penetrated into the peripheral lands to where his dynastic relatives cognates had retreated. Felling trees and digging up mountains, he built halls and altars.This stanza is even less intelligible than the previous one. See the apparatus to line 13. My translation reflects the tentative suggestions made in the apparatus notes. I assume that the stanza refers to Vijayāditya III rooting out his own rivals to the throne and simultaneously civilising the peripheries conquered in the course of this. It also seems possible that the first hemistich was intended simply to say that he conquered those peripheries, but I cannot suggest an emendation by which this purport could be obtained.
By his generosity to those who seek his protection, he surmounts Dadhīca, the Maid’s Son Karṇa, Śibi, Gupta, Bhūriśravas and Bali; and by his ocean-like patience, he surmounts the earth.Another problematic stanza; see the apparatus to line 14. I am confident in my emendation of the third pāda and my interpretation of the first three, but retain doubts about the intended meaning of the fourth quarter (for which see the apparatus note on ambhodhi-). The sage Dadhīca gave up his own bones when requested by Indra, so that a weapon could be fashioned from them. The Maid’s Son Karṇa (also called Kānīna in the [Kalucuṁbaṟṟu grant of Amma II](DHARMA_INSVengiCalukya00037.xml)) cut off the breastplate that was fused to his body from birth at the request of Indra disguised as a Brahmin. Śibi fed his own flesh to Indra in the guise of a hawk to save Agni who in the guise of a pigeon asked for his protection. Bali’s generosity is probably his giving up of the world (or of his body) to Viṣṇu in his Vāmana incarnation. I do not know of any relevant notable act by Bhūriśravas, but he is said to have been generous to Brahmins. I have not the faintest idea who the Gupta mentioned here may have been.
The beloved wife of this King Vijayāditya III named Guṇakkenalla is a great queen of illustrious lineage, called Cellakā.
When upon her attainment of young womanhood he, like Kāma embodied, married this daughter of the Vallabha Rāṣṭrakūṭa king, who was like a divine damsel with her coquettish smile, King Vijayāditya donated a village in order to accumulate merit.Stanza 7 consists only of one hemistich and lacks the expected finite verb “donated”. I believe this lack is a scribal omission and the composer’s original text would have included a second hemistich with that verb, along with some additional details (such as for whose merit the donation was made). NV interprets the text differently, seeing a finite verb in stanza 6 (“He married her” instead of my “When he married her”), and joins the single hemistich of stanza 7 to the following prose. Although that prose sentence does lack a subject, I find this interpretation unsatisfactory because it results in confused syntax in the metrical text, leaving the accusative grāmaṁ floating free without any context.
He, Vijayāditya III commands all householders kuṭumbin—including foremost the territorial overseers rāṣṭrakūṭa—who reside in Gudrahāra district viṣaya as follows:
Let it be known that we, together with Callakāryā,The agent of giving is apparently expressed at least twice, once as asmābhiḥ in line 18 and once as mayā in line 20. This is probably a simple oversight of the drafter of the text (compare the negligent composition of the next passage about the passing on of the donation). But it is also possible that in the legalese of the period, the stock phrase viditam astu vo ’smābhiḥ was understood to mean “let it be known to you from us”, i.e. that asmābhiḥ was not perceived to be the agent of the donation, but that of the proclamation. (On this point, see especially the [Pr̥thivipallavapaṭṭana grant of Viṣṇuvardhana IV](DHARMA_INSVengiCalukya00019.xml), whose Sanskrit text breaks off after these words, and the text then switches to Telugu and begins anew with svasti.) To complicate matters, the instrumental callakāryayā may also have been meant to express the agent, perhaps in apposition to mayā. NV in fact interprets the text to say that the donor is the wife, while I prefer to understand that the formal donor is the king, but since the grant is being made on the occasion of his marriage, his newly wed wife is mentioned as co-donor. A further detail relevant to this difference of opinion is that by NV’s interpretation of stanzas 6 and 7 (with which I disagree), there is no indication that the grant was made on the occasion of the marriage. have given the village named Ciṁbuluru to Vedayyaśarman, resident of Nandiyala, of the Murggali gotra,As NV observes, Murggali may perhaps be a corruption of the name Maudgalya. grandson of Madhuvayyaśarman and son of Viṣṇuśarman.
Vedayyaśarman, in turn, has given the entire village to Brahmins engaged in the the six duties of a Brahmin, who know all the treatises śāstra such as Mimāṁsā, who gratify the complete coterie of gods by the ceaseless offering of sacrifices, who are learned in the four Vedas, who have completely mastered the truths of all the Vedāṅgas, who take after Vaśiṣṭha, Jamadagni, Bharadvāja, Parāśara and Durvāsas, who have studied what there is to be studied, learned what there is to be learned, performed what ritual there is to be performed. The village named Ciṁbuluru has been given, exempt from all taxes, on the occasion of an eclipse of the moon, the donation being sanctified by a libation of water.This passage is awkwardly phrased. I translate by dividing it up into two sentences, in which case a verb must be supplied for the first. If we are to understand it as a single sentence, then the donated object is specified twice, once correctly in the nominative right before the passive verb, and another time, redundantly and incorrectly in the accusative, at the beginning after the subject expressed by a nominative. The drafter of the text probably did not pause to consider such niceties, but simply took the standard text of a grant and carelessly inserted in it a new bit about the passing on of the donation. The remission of all taxes appears at the end, whereas I would expect this to be mentioned where the king’s gift is spoken of (remission of taxes being the king’s prerogative). I also find the reference to an eclipse slightly problematic. Was the grant made on the occasion of the king’s marriage or that of an eclipse? The eclipse may have happened so close to the marriage that a need was felt to avert its inauspicious influence by making a grant. But if so, the eclipse too ought to be mentioned next to the king’s gift, and not after describing the passing on of the donation. Or was there no eclipse at all, and was this word simply retained from a previous grant that an inattentive composer used as a template for the present one?
Its boundaries are as follows. To the east, the village named Daṭṭiyavaṟṟu. To the south, the village named Golavadyapūṇḍi. To the west, the village named Indulamaddavallī. To the north, the village named Keḻipūṇḍi. The donated village is situated in between these. Let no-one pose an obstacle to the enjoyment of rights over it. He who does so shall be conjoined with the five great sins.
Many kings have granted land, and many have preserved it as formerly granted. Whosoever at any time owns the land, the fruit reward accrued of granting it belongs to him at that time.
He who would seize land, whether given by himself or by another, shall be born as a worm in faeces for sixty thousand years.
A seizer of granted land cannot be cleansed by commissioning a thousand ponds, nor by a hundred Aśvamedhas, nor by donating ten million cows.
It is the Lord of All Beings who, in order to preserve Brahmanic wealth, takes birth on earth as a Brahmin being born.
Hear the fruit of the sin of that man who seizes His property: it exceeds thousands of Brahmin-murders and cow-slaughters.
He who would would say “No, you give me, give” to one who says “Give me, give” i.e. to a Brahmin—that embodied being will not be able to say “Give” when he takes birth in another body.This stanza is badly garbled on the plate. I am quite confident of my reconstruction, even though it involves a fair amount of emendation. The verse plays on the words dehi, “give” and dehī “embodied being”. I understand its essence to be that one with the temerity to ask (and, by extension, take by force) something from a Brahmin (whose nature is to ask for, and receive, donations), will be reborn as an animal and will thus not be able to speak at all.
Over and over again, Rāmabhadra begs all future rulers thus: “Each in your own time, you shall respect this bulwark of legality that is universally applicable to kings!”
Hereby I offer my respectful obeisance añjali to all future kings on earth, whether born in my lineage or a different royal lineage, who with minds averted from sin observe this provision dharma of mine in its integrity.
Considering that fortune śrī, and indeed, the human life, is as unsteady as a drop of water on a fluttering lotus petal, and keeping in mind all adages of this kind, a sensible man ought not to expropriate the reputation of others.
It is not actual poison that is properly called poison: it is the property of a Brahmin that is said to be poison. Poison kills just the one man, while seizing the property of a Brahmin destroys his progeny.
Who indeed would act in breach of moral duty dharma for the sake of the body, which seems to be full of pain and malady, and which will decay today or tomorrow?
The executor ājñapti of this provision dharma is the mighty Paṇḍarāṁga, who has undertaken a vow of serving a single lord and whom, as a consequence of being an associate in his lord’s affairs, his lord has weighed in the balance against a mass of gold; son of the castellan kaṭeya-rāja who gave up his life for the king while fighting in a battle against an enemy army.
Of the one named Bhaṭṭa Niravadya, residing in Kolle.By my interpretation, this sentence is tagged on to the preceding pair of verses as an explanatory “footnote”, giving further information about the kaṭeya-rāja mentioned in stanza 19. NV says in his discussion that the text was composed by Bhaṭṭa Niravadya of Kolle, but the text contains no indication that the composer is being named here. A similar “footnote” is appended after stanza 15 of the [Andhra Sahitya Parishad plates of Śaktivarman](DHARMA_INSVengiCalukya00052.xml). Pāṇḍaraṅga’s father is normally referred to simply as kaṭaka-rāja (or a variant of that term), but this is almost certainly a designation of office rather than a name. We do know that Pāṇḍaraṅga’s son (and heir in office) was named Niravadya, and if I am correct in interpreting this colophon, then we now have evidence that Pāṇḍaraṅga’s father had the same name. The decree has been written ālikh- by Śrīvijayācārya, son of Akṣaralalita residing in Vijavaḍa.