Nūtimaḍugu plates of Vikramāditya II

tat-putro jayasiṁha-vallabhas trayastriṁśad varṣāṇi| tad-anujendra-rājasya priya-tanayo viṣṇuvarddhano nava vatsarāN| tat-suto maṁgi-yuvarājaḥ pañcaviṁśatiṁ| tat-putro jayasiṁhas trayodaśa vatsarāN| tad-dvaimāturānujaḥ kokkiliḥ ṣaṇ māsāN| tasya jyeṣṭho bhrātā viṣṇuvarddhanaḥ svānujam ājāv uccāṭya saptatriṁśaT| tat-tanujo vijayāditya-bhaṭṭārakaḥ Aṣṭādaśa varṣāṇi| tad-auraso viṣṇurājaḥ ṣaṭtriṁśad abdāN|

tat-suto vijayādityaś catvāriṁśata aṣṭottara-śata-śrīman -narendreśvara-kārakaḥ

tad-ātmajaḥ kali-viṣṇuvarddhanas sārddha -samāṁ| tat-suto vijayādityaḥ catuścatvāriṁśad varṣāṇi| tad-bhrātur yuvarājasya vikramādityasya tanayaḥ cālukya-bhīmas triṁśad varṣvā~~ṣaṇa~~ṇi|

tat-suto vijayādityaḥ| sapta saṁvatsarānṁs tasya sūnur amma-mahīpatiḥ yāte gaṇḍaragaṇḍa-bhūbhuji prāptābhiṣekas tatas sūnuṁ vaśāt sa tasya vijayādityaṁ punas tālapaḥ ra-gataṁ vidhāya ba bhūya bhūmīśvaro bhūmiṁ pālayati sma lataṁ śrutvā vaco Āgatya drutam āyato ’pratimukhan uddhatān hatvā tad-rudhirā-bhīma-bala-nistriṁśa-bhāsvad-bhujaḥ tan dagdhvā śrīmad-vikramāditya-bhū pālas tālapam eṣa paṭṭam avahac chū viśālāvakāśam imaṁ kṣiti-payo-rāśiṣu kūla-śālīt prabhur adhipater yyasya saroruhāsanaḥ. yad-asi-tvāgādham mahad ripur ambudher vviśati vimukho vārāṁ rāśiṁ sphurad raṇa-raṁgataḥ| ya-vanitā-cakṣur-vvāri-prasikta-tanus satīn asakr̥d akhilā jajñe vikramaika-sahāyo ’ṣṭau yuddhvā yuddha-śataṁ samāḥ yuddhe labdha- rājyaṁ yaḥ kīrttyā samam agrahīT. yat-kānti-vikrānti-kr̥tābhibhūta la-citta-vr̥rtittir candro mr̥gārāti-rucāv apīmau jātau kāka-guhā Apanudati pareṣāṁ rāga-mohau yadīyo diśati ca karavāla-| cirayati samagraṁ bhūri-sāṁsāra-mohan nara Iva bhuvi siddho loka-vikhyāta-kīrttiḥ.

sa samasta-bhuvanāśraya-śrī-vikramāditya-mahārājādhirāja-parameśvara-parama-bhaṭṭāraka-parama-brahmaṇyaḥ kaṇḍervvāḍi-viṣaya-nivāsino rāṣṭrakūṭa-pramukhān kuṭimbinas sarvvān ittham ājñāpayati

viditam astu mādityā

svānujam ājāv uccāṭya The reading is plausible, but compare line 12 of the Bezvāḍa plates of Bhīma I, which have svānujam adam uccāṭya. catvāriṁśata NLR only observes that the text from aṣṭottara is half an anuṣṭubh stanza. I prefer to assume that we are dealing with a full stanza here, though it is possible that the first hemistich has indeed been converted into prose. The Bezvāḍa plates of Bhīma I, which contains a practically identical genealogy, has corrupt prose here: tat-suto vijayādityaḥ catvāriṁśat samaḥ. Other grants of the dynasty describe the length of Vijayāditya II's reign in anuṣṭubh (though not juxtaposed to the extant hemistich here) as catvāriṁśat samāṣṭabhiḥ or catvāriṁśat samās samaḥ. There is no way to determine whether a reign of forty or forty-eight years was assigned here. The last character in line 7 may perhaps be T or tsa rather than ta. -samāṁ| tat-suto The meaning of the lost text was certainly as restored by NLR, but the words may have been different. The Bezvāḍa plates of Bhīma I have samaḥ tan-nandano here. vikramādityasya I assume that NLR could read the text he prints as clear and could estimate the number of lost characters with some precision, in which case his restoration is perfectly plausible. But if he was guessing where he admits no doubt, then the text could have run somewhat differently. The Bezvāḍa plates of Bhīma I read tad-bhrātur yyuvarājasya vikramāditya-bhūpateḥ putro bhīmaḥ. The phrase tad-bhrātur yyuvarājasya may also be the beginning of an anuṣṭubh stanza. triṁśad varṣvā~~ṣaṇa~~ṇi| triṁśad varṣāṇiṇa| The scope of correction may be somewhat larger; possibly, triṁśataṁ vvarṣāṇi was first engraved, then taṁ was overwritten with dva and the subsequent characters corrected accordingly. I am quite certain that the following ta is also the result of correction, but cannot establish the pre-correction character. tat-suto vijayādityaḥ I feel quite certain that an anuṣṭubh stanza must have begun here, since we subsequently have a partly extant half-stanza followed by a different metre. NLR shows this passage as prose. ṣaṇ māsāN NLR shows this passage as prose. I am far from sure that a full quarter stanza could have fit in the lacuna here, but compare the previous note. -bhūbhuji -bhūbhu At the end of line 10 I see nothing recognisable beyond bhū, but I assume that NLR's bhu is based on vestiges. He does not make the restoration I suggest, but surely had the same in mind. Unless the vestigial bhu is quite clear in the original, bhūbhr̥ti is also possible. prāptābhiṣekas I would expect this word to be in the accusative but must accept NLR's reading because nothing is legible in the visuals available to me. vaśāt Perhaps restore kāla-vaśāt or daiva-vaśāt. tasya I do not understand why NLR did not read this word, which is quite visible even in the ASI photo. ra-gataṁ ru-gataṁ Very tentatively, I suggest restoring kārāgāra-gataṁ. sma lataṁ taṁ drutam āyato ’pratimukha drutam āyata-pratimukha I hesitantly accept NLR's reading for the first part of this segment, because I have nothing better to offer. I see no vowel marker in dru, and the character may also be pra, since its bottom seems to be joined to the vertical stroke NLR reads as the tail of the following ta. The body of mā is partly obliterated but it is certainly wider than expected, with an extra stroke that looks like a greater-than sign between the body and the vowel marker. At the end of this segment, to seems quite certain, so an avagraha probably needs to be supplied after it. -rudhirā- Perhaps restore -rudhirākta-? śrīmad- If NLR's reading is correct, then the poet availed of licence whereby the syllable preceding śr is scanned as short. avahac chū° avahac cū° viśālāvakāśam saroruhāsanaḥ. This was probably a stanza in the original. NLR suggests that its metre may have been āryā, but if his reading is largely correct, then this is prosodically impossible. Given the lengths of adjacent lines (29 characters each in lines 14 and 15; 31 in line 18), the total length of the stanza would have been about 40 characters, with about 2 in the first lacuna and about 13 in the second. It may perhaps have been in viyoginī (42 characters total), but this too is only possible if NLR's reading (which I am unable to improve) is substantially incorrect. ambudher ambugair ya-vanitā- If NLR's reading (which he shows as clear) is correct, perhaps restore yad-ari-vanitā. labdha- Perhaps restore labdha-jayo? -kr̥tābhibhūta -kr̥tābhibhūtī In the character NLR reads as kr̥, the vowel marker is not attached to the body as it is in l19 asakr̥d and as subscript r is attached two characters earlier in this line. Reading the partly obliterated body as k is still plausible, but v, bh or dh may also be possible. The end of this word may require emendation to ā. The ī printed in NLR's edition is not present and not interpretable to me. After this word, it is tempting to restore lakṣmī, in compound or with a nominative ending. -vr̥rtittir -vr̥rtīttī -rucāv apīmau jātau kāka-guhā -rucāv apīmau jātau guhā samagraṁ I do not know whether the hypometrical prosody is a misprint in NLR's edition or an omission in the original. The intended text may have been ca samagraṁ, susamagraṁ, etc. mādityā NLR prints eight dots for the first lacuna and two for the second. It is not clear to me whether he intends the number of dots to represent the length of lacunae; elsewhere in the text, some of his lacunae seem to correspond to my estimates of lacuna length at two dots per akṣara, but elsewhere at one dot per akṣara.

Seal

Plates

His son Jayasiṁha Vallabha I, for thirty-three years. His younger brother Indrarāja’s Indra Bhaṭṭāraka’s dear son Viṣṇuvardhana II, for nine years. His son Maṅgi Yuvarāja, for twenty-five. His son Jayasiṁha II, for thirteen years. His younger brother by a different mother, Kokkili, for six months. After dethroning his younger brother in battle, his eldest brother Viṣṇuvardhana III, for thirty-seven years. His son Vijayāditya I Bhaṭṭāraka, for eighteen years. His son Viṣṇurāja Viṣṇuvardhana IV, for thirty-six years.

His son Vijayāditya II, who erected a hundred and eight majestic Narendreśvara temples, for forty The short lost segment was probably just “years,” but it is also possible that it was a number (e.g. eight) to be added to 40.

His son Kali Viṣṇuvardhana V, for a year and a half. His son Vijayāditya III, for forty-four years. The son of his brother the heir-apparent yuvarāja Vikramāditya, Cālukya-Bhīma I, for thirty years.

His son Vijayāditya IV reigned for six months. His son King Amma I, for seven years.

When King Gaṇḍaragaṇḍa Amma I had gone to heaven, then through the power of fate Tālapa made prisoner his Amma I’s son Vijayāditya, who had been anointed as king. Tālapa protected the earth as king, having heard the voice My translation follows the suggestions I make in the apparatus for lines 11 and 12. The second hemistich is more problematic and may have a quite different meaning.

Arriving in haste, killing haughty enemies, his arms glowing with a sword of fearsome might which was smeared with the blood of that enemy, scorching that Tālapa, His Majesty, this King Vikramāditya II took up the turban of royalty.

this great opportunity endowed with banks among masses of land and water the overlord adhipati whose Lord is the Lotus-throned BrahmāThis stretch of text, probably a stanza, is badly preserved and may have been incorrectly read even where extant; I cannot grasp a coherent idea that would connect the available fragments.

From the theatre of battle he enters, with face averted, the ocean’s great, unfathomable mass of seething waters sword his body sprinkled with water from the eyes of the women of his enemies the entire was born repeatedlyHere too, the preserved segments are not sufficient to make a coherent whole, and some of the readings are suspect. The stanza, or at least the first hemistich, may have been a simile likening a battle to an ocean.

Having fought a hundred battles over eight years with none but his valour for company, attaining victory in battle, he grasped the kingdom together with fame.If the reading is correct (which is somewhat doubtful), then this stanza says that Vikramāditya II spent eight years fighting a war. This means either that Vikramāditya II fought his wars during the reign of Amma I, or that he remained alive and active throughout the reign of Yuddhamalla II and issued this charter very shortly before the coronation of Bhīma II

a state of mind overwhelmed by his comeliness and valour the moon these two, though they resemble a lion, have become cave Again, the stanza is too fragmentarily preserved to find a coherent thread, and some readings may be incorrect.

His pushes away the passion and delusion of others, and his sword indicates ; he entirely delays copious worldly delusion, renowned on earth like Nara Arjuna, with a reputation spread wide among the people.

That shelter of the entire universe samasta-bhuvanāśraya, His Majesty the supremely pious Supreme Lord parameśvara of Emperors mahārājādhirāja, the Supreme Sovereign parama-bhaṭṭāraka Vikramāditya II, commands all householders kuṭumbin—including foremost the territorial overseers rāṣṭrakūṭa—who reside in Kaṇḍervvāḍi district viṣaya as follows:

Let it be known to you that

This set of plates is a palimpsest, with two plates of an Eastern Cālukya grant re-utilised for a Vijayanagar grant (edited in the same article). Moreover, the Cālukya grant itself seems to have been written, at least in part, over an erased earlier text, as indicated by vestiges of characters e.g. above line 9. Only plates 2 and 3 of the original grant are preserved, with the genealogy extant from Jayasiṁha I onward. The pages of the original grant are not in the same order as those of the later one, so that EC page 2r is Vijayanagar 2r; EC 2v = V 2v; EC 3r = V 1r and EC 3v = V 1v. At least one, probably two additional plates at the end of the EC grant are also lost. The two remaining plates have been re-cut into the shape of a typical Vijayanagar grant, causing the loss of some characters at the corners. The plates, when found, were bound by a ring without a seal.

Stanza 3 (śārdūlavikrīḍita) has a caesura in the middle of a word in pāda b. If NLR reads the text correctly, then pāda c of stanza 4 (śārdūlavikrīḍita) has muta cum liquida licence, a caesura in the middle of a word (before a suffix), and enjambement (at a compound boundary) from this pāda to the next.

Edited from the original by N. Lakshminarayan Rao (A), with photographs of 2v and 3r, without translation. The present edition by Dániel Balogh is based on a collation of Lakshminarayan Rao's edition with photographs kept at the ASI (Mysore). The set of ASI photos likewise records only 2v and 3r, but they are somewhat better legible than the published ones. I assume that Lakshminarayan Rao was able to make out more from the original than I can from the photos, and thus accept his readings unless counterindicated. Where photos are available, I indicate unclear and tentative readings accordingly, and show restored text visible to a previous editor where Lakshminarayan Rao prints a reading even though I cannot make anything out in the pictures. For the parts without visual documentation, I follow his edition verbatim unless otherwise noted.