Pallava

Maidavolu, Narasaraopet taluk, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh. 4th century AD.

Eight copper-plates found in 1899 during the digging of a field, in an abandoned village north of Maidavolu, a village in Narasaraopet taluk, Guntur district and presented to the Museum by Maidavolu Jayaramayya, the owner. The plates are strung on a ring by the ends of which is secured an elliptical seal, which bears in relief a couchant bull facing proper right, with the legend 'Sivaskandavarmanah' partially worn.

The language of the inscription is Prakrit, the script employed being old Pallava.
 
These plates record that the Pallava king Sivaskandavarman, while he was Yuva-Maharaja granted a village named Viripara situated in Andharapatha (i.e) the Telugu country, to two Brahmans.

Viripara must have been situated near Amaravati, as Sivaskandavarman addressed his order to his father's representative at Dhannakada, the modern Amaravati. The grant was issued from Kanchipura, the capital of the Pallava kings. It is thus indicated that during the time of Sivaskandavarman, the Pallava kingdom was composed of Tondaimandalam and the Telugu country as far north as the Krishna river.

The grant was made on the fifth tithi of the sixth fortnight of summer, in the tenth year of the reign perhaps of Sivaskandavarman's predecessor. The date of Sivaskandavarman may be fixed at about the beginning of the 4th Century AD.