This set of copper plates were found alongside a second Viṣṇukundin charter in the village of Tummalagūdem in Rāmannapeṭa taluk in the Nalgoṇḍa district of Telingana.
The charter records the donation of the village of Peṇkapara to the Āryasaṁgha in the Paramabhaṭṭārikā-mahāvihāra in the town of Indrapura; the vihāra was built by Gōvindavarman’s eldest Queen, Paramabhaṭṭārikā Mahādēvī.
The donation was made by Gōvindavarman on the full moon day of Vaiśākha in the 37th year of Gōvindavarman’s reign.
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| Inscription ID | EIAD174 |
| Title | Tummalagudem Copper Plate Inscription of Govindavarman I, year 37 |
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| Author | Arlo Griffiths |
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| Language | संस्कृतम् |
| Reigning monarch | Govindavarman I |
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| Date: | |
| Min | 425 |
| Max | 450 |
| Comment | Thirty-seventh regnal year of the king Govindavarman I of the Viṣṇukuṇḍin dynasty. Approximately between 425 and 450 CE. The plates may however be a (likely modified) copy of the orginal grant, produced under the reign of Vikamendravarman II (r. ca. 555—572). The paleography of the inscription would support such a later date. Cf. Tournier, Vincent. (2018). A Tide of Merit: Royal Donors, Tāmraparṇīya Monks, and the Buddha’s Awakening in 5th–6th-Century Āndhradeśa, Indo-Iranian Journal, 61, no. 1, pp. 27-28, n. 17. |
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| Description | Southern Brāhmī script. |
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| Description | Campus dimensions unavailable. 32 lines. |
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| Bibliography | |
| References | First described and edited by Sastri in Bharati 1965 , pp. 18ff., July, pp. 2ff.., followed by Rama Rao 1965: 738–41 , Sankaranarayanan 1974: 9–14, pl. III-V, and Mirashi 1982b: 135–41 . Re-edited for EIAD by Arlo Griffiths and Vincent Tournier, with contributions by Stefan Baums and Ingo Strauch, from published documentation and after autopsy of the plates. |
| Add to bibliography | See also, ARIE 1968-69: 2, no. A.2; Sankaranarayanan 1977a: 37ff., 153–6 (I); Hanumantha Rao et al. 1998: 197–202; Tournier 2018. |
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