By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: A 908 years old inscribed stone pillar is discovered from the Tripurantaka Swamy Shiva temple from Jami village of Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh.
The ancient archaeological remain was discovered by the heritage Survey team of INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage) Odisha Chapter, that is doing a documentation of Kalingan historic sites found in present day Andhra Pradesh.
Deepak Kumar Nayak, the project co-ordinator of this INTACH campaign had shared the photographs of the inscribed pillar to K. Munirathnam Reddy, the Director of Epigraphy, ASI Mysore circle. Mr. Munirathnam deciphered the inscription & sent his team to the Tripurantaka temple of Jami. The ASI team under Dr. M.V.R. Varma had copied the inscriptions & the decipherment will soon be published in ASI’s epigraphical journals.
A three members survey team of INTACH Odisha chapter that includes Deepak Kumar Nayak, Bishnu Mohan Adhikari & Bikram Kumar Nayak discovered the inscribed stone pillar found in the premises of Jami Shiva temple earlier.
According to Deepak Kumar Nayak, the inscription is engraved on the four sides of a pillar found in the compound of Tripurantaka swamy temple of Jami village. It is written in Telugu and Sanskrit languages using Telugu script dated in saka year 1038 Kartika sukla 12 that equals October 20 Friday, 1116 CE.
The pillar is damaged & the content seems to record the gift of land to the god for burning a perpetual lamp and also to a brahmana (whose name is unknown), son of Jannasarma by the king Anantavarmadeva in his 40th regnal year. The above gift should be maintained by the mahajanas of the village Jami, it is mentioned in the writings, said Mr. Nayak.
The above inscription is of the time period of great Eastern Ganga King Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva who ruled over Kalinga from year 1077 to 1150 CE, said Bishnu Mohan Adhikari, an epigraphist & researcher from Parlakhemundi who is also a member of INTACH survey team during this documentation.
