On this occasion,
The son of Queen Āryā and that King Dāna, called Śaktivarman and equipped with the triad of powers śakti, endowed with political sense naya, discipline vinaya and valour—
who is as bright as the moon, so that his fame is like lime whitewash nectar for the palace that is the universe, and the effusion of his glory light shines permanently like a lamp in the middle of that palace—
-the string of pearls on whose vinelike graceful sword, attached sthagita from the splitting of the surface of the protrusions on the temples of enemy elephants, shines evidently like a string of flowers on a vine—Compare verse 15 of the [Raṇastipūṇḍi grant of Vimalāditya](DHARMA_INSVengiCalukya00049.xml).
-who, aglow with wounds, attained fame even in childhood bālya in the battle with the Colas;According to KR, the same battle is referred to as dramiḷāhava in the Pabhupaṟṟu grant of Śaktivarman. Apparently (191), this grant has only been published in the Āndhra Sāhitya Parishad Patrikā, and neither the original nor any good facsimiles remain available. KR further notes that bālya probably indicates an age up to 16 years, as defined in Dharmaśāstras. who routed the overly conceited King mahārāja Badyema and others; who showed his own fortitude to the world by going about unwounded while fending off the sharp missiles of the enemy with his chest,I am not entirely certain about my interpretation of the third quarter of this stanza, but believe that the composer’s idea was what I translate here. For this to work, preṣita must be understood here as a substantive. KR, who apparently analysed the text with parikṣata instead of my aparikṣata (see the apparatus to line 47), may have understood parikṣata-caro as a plural accusative of a kenning for arrow (literally, “that which goes into wounds”); in this case, “going about unwounded” is not part of the message. I find this interpretation more forced and less likely than mine.—the unrivalled King adhipa His Majesty Śaktivarman.
+the concealed pearls of the forehead globes of whose enemies’ elephants shine open to view when he splits the surface of those globes, strung like a string of flowers on the liana that is his sword—My translation involves stretching the boundaries of syntax and compound structure to the extreme in order to accommodate the unexpected word sthagita in the original which, if deliberate, was probably meant to countered by sphuṭam. If sthagita is a mistake for a word meaning something like “revealed,” then a much easier translation would be: “the string of pearls revealed by whose splitting of the surface of the forehead globes of his enemies’ elephants shine clearly like a string of flowers on the liana that is his sword—”. For a similar image, compare verse 15 of the [Raṇastipūṇḍi grant of Vimalāditya](DHARMA_INSVengiCalukya00049.xml).
+who, aglow with wounds, attained fame even in childhood bālya in the battle with the Colas;According to KR, the same battle is referred to as dramiḷāhava in the Pabhupaṟṟu grant of Śaktivarman. Apparently (191), this grant has only been published in the Āndhra Sāhitya Parishad Patrikā, and neither the original nor any good facsimiles remain available. However, the [Guṇḍipoduṟu grant of Śaktivarman](DHARMA_INSVengiCalukya00103.xml) has now been edited and refers, probably, to the same episode as drāviḍa-saṁggare, so understanding caulika to refer to some Coḻa rulers is probably warranted even though Śaktivarman eventually married a Coḻa princess and reclaimed the throne of Veṅgī with his father-in-law’s support. KR’s interpretation that “a battle for the Coḻas/Tamils” is meant is not impossible, but rather forced. KR further notes that bālya probably indicates an age up to 16 years, as defined in Dharmaśāstras. who routed the overly conceited King mahārāja Badyema and others; who demonstrated his own fortitude, unrivalled in the world, by killing the assassins sent by his enemies (even) while he was wounded in the chestSee the apparatus to line 47 for a slight uncertainty in this passage.—the King adhipa His Majesty Śaktivarman.
Mentally laughing at the divine Nārāyaṇa, thinking, “he is said to have defeated the hosts of demons daitya in olden days by abandoning his own form and taking recourse to faked identities like the Fish,” this Cālukya-Nārāyaṇa Śaktivarman, in addition to having cast down his other enemies, put to death in battle His Majesty the masterful King adhipa Coḍa-Bhīma, who was a likeness of Rāvaṇa.Given the first hemistich, one would expect the stanza to say that Cālukya-Nārāyaṇa laugs at the divine Nārāyaṇa because he does not need a false guise to defeat his enemies. This is indeed how RK summarises the stanza, but I see no way to finding that meaning in the text. The second hemistich is an awkward jumble of words. Most jarringly, it lacks a verbal form to express the action. Moreover, it uses surprisingly flattering terminology īśa and śrī for the enemy Coḍa-Bhīma, and even though api ought to imply a contradiction (“even though he had first cast down his enemies”), I see no such thing, nor any need for a reference to enemies in general here. Conversely, there is nothing in the second hemistich about Cālukya-Nārāyaṇa doing so in his own form, nor is there a counterpart here to prāk, “in olden days.” The only point where the second hemistich matches the first is that this human Nārāyaṇa defeats an enemy likened to Rāvaṇa, who was defeated by the divine Nārāyaṇa in the form of Rāma. The text on the plate is quite clearly legible and includes only one evident scribal mistake (°āṣāsta), where the composer’s original intent is quite straightforward (°āpāsta). I wonder if perhaps the fourth quarter belongs originally to a different stanza. Two stanzas may have been either cobbled together badly by a clumsy composer, or a quarter of the first and three quarters of the second may have been omitted by an inattentive scribe.
Churning with the power of his own arms the ocean of the army rathinī of the lord of Utkalikā—this ocean in which the sea monsters makara are fearsomely caparisonedI am somewhat baffled by the juxtaposition of vāraṇa and ibha, both normally meaning “elephant.” It may be that two different kinds of elephants were meant by the composer, but neither of these words has the connotation of a particular sort of elephant. I therefore prefer to take vāraṇa in the more literal, though uncommon, sense of “fending off,” i.e. armour, loosely rendered in my translation as “caparison.” raging elephants, in which the crocodiles nakra are processions of heroes, which swells with water that is blood and tumbles with thousands of strings of waves which are horses—this Cālukya-Nārāyaṇa seizes in battle the Royal Fortune śrī belonging to that lord of Utkalikā as the divine Nārāyaṇa churned the ocean and seized the goddess Śrī who had belonged to that ocean.
That shelter of all the world sarva-lokāśraya, His Majesty Viṣṇuvardhana, the supremely pious Supreme Lord parameśvara of Emperors mahārājādhirāja, the Supreme Sovereign parama-bhaṭṭāraka and supreme devotee of Maheśvara, convokes all householders kuṭumbin—including foremost the territorial overseers rāṣṭrakūṭa—who reside in Vaṟanāṇḍu district viṣaya, and commands the minister mantrin, the chaplain purohita, the general senāpati, the crown prince yuvarāja and the commander of the guard dauvārikādhyakṣa as follows. To wit: