80 INSCRIPTIONS TO DISAPPEAR PERMANENTLY

Gold coat to hide Tirumala carvings

Tirupati: The glorious history of the reigning deity of Tirumala, Lord Venkateswara, and of the richest shrine is known to the world, thanks to hundreds of inscriptions engraved on the walls of Tirumala as well as in other TTD-run temples here. But blame it on TTD’s mega Ananda Nilayam Anantha Swarnamayam (gold coating) project of the temple, about 80 inscriptions are going to disappear permanently from the public view.
It was Mahant Prayagdas who started it all by doing a thorough research on the inscriptions in 1920. Later, epigraphist and archaeologist Sadhu Subramanya Shastri took over the mantle as he did research for a period of 11 years from 1922 to 1933 by translating hundreds of Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada inscriptions to English, using the ‘eye copy’ technique. Shastri brought to light several inscriptions engraved on temple walls, pillars and gopurams. About 640 inscriptions in Tirumala shrine, 340 in Sri Govindaraja Swamy temple, 170 in almost half a dozen temples of TTD located in and around Tirupati saw the light of the day.
All these 1,150 inscriptions were later brought out in the form of books by Shastri, which is considered one of the greatest works done on the Tirumala inscriptions as yet. Of these, 236 belonged to the Pallava, Chola and Pandya dynasties, while
169 belonged to the age of Saluva dynasty. While 251 belonged to Achutaraya period, 130 to Sadasivaraya period and another 135 originated in Aravidu dynasty.
A majority of these inscriptions are in Tamil, followed by Kannada and a few in Telugu. The inscription belonging to 830 AD during the time of Pallava king Vijayadanti Verman is considered the oldest one. With the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) launching the gold coating work last year, doubts cropped up over the safety of the inscriptions. However, the TTD took care to digitise all the inscriptions present inside the walls of sanctum of first prakaram and handed over the estampage works to the Archaeological Survey of India, Mysore.
S e n i o r epigraphist K Muniratnam Reddy said 80 inscriptions engraved on the north, south and west walls of first prakara inside the sanctorum have been estampaged (taking the imprints of the inscriptions before gold malam works are done) for the purpose. “We have done the process on 80 inscriptions. Of which, 43 measured over 16 ft in length so that the letters engraved on them would not be destroyed. Of the 80 inscriptions, 55 are in Tamil, 15 in Kannada and 10 in Telugu, which include the enumerable and precious donations by Pallava Samavai (9 AD), Pridhivi Mahendra Verman, Cholas of Tamil Nadu, Vijayanagara rulers of Andhra and Karnataka,” Muniratnam said.