inscriptions in the hassan district

It INTRODUCTION.
Krishnavarmma, son of Simbavarmma, who was the son of Vishnuvarmnia,
who was the son, by the daughter of Kaikeya, of Krishnavarmma. The details
given of the date do not suffice to determine the period. Dr. Kielhorn is of
opinion, from the forms of one or two letters which he specifies, that the
inscription can hardly be placed earlier than the 7th century A.D. But 1
do not see how this can be reconciled with the fact that the Kadambas lost
their independence in the 6th century. In my Introduction to Vol. VI of this
Series I have shown how the above succession of kings can be fitted on to that
given in the Talgunda pillar, through what we learn from the Birur plates
(published in that volume). The first Krishnavarmma of the present inscription
is identified with* the Krishnavarmma of the Birur plates from being
the performer of a horse-sacrifice, and the father of Vishnuvarmma 2. If
the latter was the king slain by Ravivarmina 3 they can be shown to have been
contemporaries and cousins by the arrangement proposed in my Introduction
above referred to.
The Kadambas are introduced with the usual statements that they were
•'purified by meditation on Svami Mahasena and the group of Mothers, were
of the Manavya-gotra and Haritiputras, and fully versed in the views they
had adopted on the sacred writings". This latter difficult phrase is translated
by Dr. Kielhorn, "studying the requital (of good or evil) as their sacred text",
and he has a long note (loc. cit) giving his reasons for so rendering it. ' ; If this
interpretation be correct," he adds, "I cannot help thinking that the epithet
alludes to the history of the Kadambas as told in the Talgund inscription.
So long as the Kadambas were private Brahmans, it was one of their chief
duties to study the sacred texts; in other words they were svddhydya-charchdpdrds.
When they had become kings, it was an equally sacred duty for them
to requite good and evil; to do so was what the study of the Veda had been
to them before, and thus, having been svadhydya-charchaparas, they then were
pratikrita-svadhydya-charchaparas.'"
The grant was made on the advice of Handatta, a Sreshthi or merchant,
who, besides being dignified with gotra and pravara, is said to have been the
donor of a thousand (or thousands of) cows. It consisted of the village of
Kolanallur in the Vallavi-vishaya, given to a Brahman named Vishnusarmma,
who, in addition to other praises, is said to be a preserver of the perpetual
sacred fire. There is a village of Kolanallur mentioned in Ag. 62, under the
date 1404 A. D., as an agrahfira named Sarvvajna-Bhaskarapura, to the
Brahmans of which a grant was made of the village of Ulenahalli, where the
1) Ep. Ind.VI, 17.
2) In bis notice of this inscription (Kan. Dyn. 290) Dr. Fleet, who says that he quotes from his
own reading, makes a mistake in giving Vishnuvarman as the name of the father, and Krisbna-
Tftrman as his son; the latter being the father and the former the son.
3) Ind. Ant., VI, 30.