Note - The below appears in Epigraphia Indica Volume 33, page 299.
No. 55—INSCRIPTION FROM BANTVALA
B. R. GOPAL, OOTACAMUND, AND R. SATHYANARAYANA, MYSORE
(Received on 6.3.1958)
The inscription,¹ edited here with the kind permission of the Government Epigraphist for India, is engraved on a stone tablet fixed into a platform in front of the Veṅkaṭaramaṇasvāmin temple at Baṇṭvāḷa in the Mangalore Taluk of the South Kanara District.
The epigraph is engraved in Kannada script excepting the last two lines which are in Nāgarī characters. Its language, however, is Kannada all through. As regards the palaeography of this late record, it is interesting to note that it uses the sign for indicating the length for e̅ and o̅, which is placed to the right side of the letter.
The record registers the death of Svāmi Bhuvanēndra-tīrtha Śrīpāda of the Kāsi maṭha and the erection of a lamp-post by Śrīnivāsa Bāli ga, the fifth son² of Veṅkaṭēśa Bāli ga of Baṇṭvāla, in commemoration of the event. The inscription contains two dates, one relating to the death of the Svāmi and the other to the erection of the lamp-post. The first date is Śaka 1808, Vyaya, Mārgaśīrsha-śu. 1, Friday, corresponding to the 26th November 1886 A.D. The same date is referred to in the concluding section in Nāgarī characters (lines 20-21), where reference is made to Friday the twelfth day of the month of Vṛiśchika in the year Vyaya. The details agree with the 26th November 1886 A.D. The date of the erection of the lamp-post is given as Māgha śu. 15, Tuesday, regularly corresponding the 8th February 1887 A. D., and this English date also is specified in the record in line 19.
Śrīnivāsa Bāḷiga, the donor of the lamp-post, was a Brāhmaṇa of the Gauḍa-Sārasvata community belonging to the Kāśi maṭha. It is said that the Sārasvatas originally belonged to the Punjab where they dwelt on the banks of the river Sarasvatī. Some of them are believed to have migrated to Bihar and settled in Tirhut, whence they moved westwards and settled in Goa in the South Konkan.³ About 1554 A.D. when the Portuguese, who were by then masters of Goa, began their religious persecution, the Sārasvatas fled from Goa and settled in the neighbouring Sonda State, the North and South Kanara Districts and the Cochin and Travancore States. In the earliest Kaḍatas (old account books) and palm-leaf documents available in the South Kanara District, they are known as Koṅkaṇasthā or, as we find in our inscription, Koṅkaṇa-dēśīya-Gauḍa-Sārasvata.
Till the advent of Madhvāchārya, the founder of the dualistic philosophy, the Sārasvatas belonged to the Kavale maṭha (Kaivalyapura or Quela in Goa). But later many of them became followers of Madhvāchārya and set up their own spiritual heads. Thus there are two other maṭhas of the Gauḍa-Sārasvata community besides the Kavale maṭha, viz., the Kāśi maṭha and the Gōkarṇa maṭha, both being Vaishṇava institutions of the dualistic school of philosophy. A maṭha at Baṇṭvāla was established by Svāmi Dēvēndra-tīrtha of the Kāśi maṭha about the middle of the 18th century. Svāmi Bhuvanēndra-tīrtha, whose death our record registers, was the disciple of Svāmi Suyatīndra-tīrtha and is said to have possessed mantra-śakti as well as vaidya-śakti. He attained samādhi at Basrūr in 1886 A.D. on the date given above.
Footnotes
¹ A.R.E-p., 1956-57, No. B 223.
² According to a note received by us from the authorities of the Kāśi maṭha, Śrinivāsa Bāliiga was the second son of Veñkaṭēśa Bāliiga. But, according to the genealogical chart received from Shri B. Vaikunta Baliga, the former was the fifth son of the latter and this is supported by the record under study.
² For further details about the Gauḍa-Sārasvatas, see Chavan, Vaishnava Dharma of the Gauḍa-Sārasvatas.
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The donor of our record was a member of the Bāḷiga family that was among those that fled from Goa and after various vicissitudes at last settled at Baṇṭvāla and had a temple constructed there. A celebrated member of this family is the late Bāb Bāḷiga, in whose memory a peepal tree was planted and a high stone platform was built for its protection. Our inscription is engraved on one of the stones fixed into this platform.¹ In the present inscription, Baṇṭvāla, described as the abode of the guru, is referred to as Vaṭapura.
The main interest in the record lies in the fact that it contains a song in praise of the guru. The song is, as the record itself mentions, in the Kāpi-rāga and aṭṭa-tāḷa (ashṭa-tāḷa). Kāpi is a dēśya (imported) rāga, borrowed from Hindustani music and assimilated into the Karṇāṭaka sys- tem. It is a bhāshānga-janya-rāga belonging to the Kharaharapriya mēḷa, omitting ga and dha in the ascent, with curvature about dha in the descent, and employing Kakali nishāda as an acci- dental in the ascent. It bears a general structural resemblance with its North Indian namesake and is in wide usage in South India, especially since the advent of the Trinity of Karnāṭaka music, viz. Tyāgarāja, Dīkshitar and Śāma Śāstri. Aṭṭa-tāḷa is one of the seven suḷadi tālas of ancient origin popular in Karṇāṭaka, especially in the devotional songs of the Haridāsas.
The song in our record consists of a pallavi, an anupallavi and two charaṇas, and is in the literary style of the Haridāsas. The pallavi and anupallavi are of equal length, each consisting of two lines of eleven and thirteen syllables respectively. Each of the two charaṇas is of approximately the same size and consists of four lines. Inasmuch as the anupallavi of the present composition is of the same size as the pallavi, the general rule in musical composition that the anupallavi should be twice the length (i.e. twice the number of lines of the same size as in the pallavi) is not observed. It may, however, be noted that it is one of the numerous exceptions where this rule is not followed. The composition conforms, in any case, to the rule so far as the charaṇa is concerned as it is twice in length of the anupallavi. The two charaṇas are also in general agreement with the compositional style of the Haridāsas in the simple, almost prosaic, form of the language, the subject matter, the length of each line and the mention of the author in the last line of the last charaṇa.
The metre of the composition cannot be classified under mātrā-gaṇa or amśa-gaṇa. The accent and caesura are nowhere uniform. At best, it is an approximate Anāvartani-vṛitta and as such suits melodic rendering. The approximately uniform syllabic quantity in the lines of the verse is an advantage to the composition which is nibaddha (i.e., set to time) in view of the possibility of equitable syllabic distribution over the tāla cycle. The syllabic quantity in the lines is suited to the aṭṭa-tāla cycle of fourteen mātras, as there would be the minimum crowding or gap. Moreover there is abundance of the metrical units tribrach, dactyl and anapaest in the composition. The absence of complex consonantal combinations is a feature of the song. Despite all these, the composition lacks force of expression and elegance.
The literary theme of the song is consistent with Mādhva philosophy which places considerable importance on the status of the guru and marks out a gradation of the jīvas in the cosmic world in which the guru-traya head the list. The theme of the song is suitable since Bhuvanēndra-tīrtha was probably the guru of the author.
The song (documented here) may be translated freely as follows :
Pallavi : There is no God greater than the Preceptor. Emancipation cannot be obtained without [the guidance of] a good Preceptor.
Anupallavi : The foot of the lord, the Preceptor, which has created the world, is without beginning, middle or end. It is beyond nāda and śruti. It is to be seen and understood through sādhana.
Charaṇas : The mortals made of the three guṇas (viz., sattva, rajas and tamas) contemplate the foot of the Preceptor which is free from these constant attributes. Countless great saints contemplate the foot of the Preceptor in their hearts. All the living world as represented by the celestial, human, reptilian, aerial and animal beings as well as the movable and immovable (i.e. animate and inanimate) are but the light [reflected] from the dust on the Preceptor's foot. The noble Vaṭapura is the abode of the Preceptor.
The name of the composer of the song occurs in line 7 as Śrīvāsakṛishṇa. Enquiries reveal that the donor was a pious man who was an ardent lover of poetry and music. It may be surmised that he himself composed the song. The text, however, refers to the composer as hailing from Śirivaḷa which we are unable to identify.
Footnote
¹ We are indebted to the manager of the Kāśi maṭha for giving us information about the Gauḍa-Sārasvata community and the Kāśi maṭha and some other details.
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