INSCRIPTIONS. 



229 



written in honor of Tirnmaraja at the request of his son 

 Tirumalaraja. To this Tirumalaraja, who was the eldest 

 brother of Vithala, the Balabhagavatam was dedicated. The 

 families of the Telugu princes in those days are distinguished 

 by their literary propensities, and appear again and again as 

 liberal patrons of poetry, arts and sciences. 



In the preface to the Balabhagavatam, Konerinatha gives 

 an accurate account of the family of his patron, which family 

 is known as the dynasty of the Narapatis. As Konerinatha, 

 who hailed from Duvvuru, was a son of a former minister, 

 he enjoyed as such a peculiarly favorable position for being 

 well informed about the family history of his protector. The 

 genealogical information about the Narapatis supplied by 

 Konerinatha coincides with the statements contained in the 

 Vasucaritram of Ramabhusana, in the Narasabhupaliyam of 

 Saradamurti, in the Narapativijayam or Ramarajiyam, the 

 family chronicle of the younger line of the Narapatis and 

 with those furnished by inscriptions. 2 But inasmuch as the 

 patron of Konerinatha belongs to the elder branch of the 

 Narapatis, and the other works just quoted are devoted to 

 the younger royal line, information is given by Konerinatha 

 about this elder branch which is not contained elsewhere. 

 The elder line is descended from Tirnmaraja, the elder son 

 of Ramaraja, while the younger line is descended from 

 Srirangaraja, the third and youngest son of the same prince. 



The origin of the Narapatis is in all the four works and in 

 the Devanhalli inscription traced back to Arjuna and thence to 

 Candra. The Narapatis are moreover styled Oalukyas. Accord- 

 ing to the Narapativijayam and to the Devanhalli inscription 

 Nandaraja is the eighty-third descendant of the Pandava 

 Arjuna, and Calukya the ninth descendant of Nanda. 

 From Calukya descended in course of time the well-known 



2 See Balabhagavatam, p. 5. Compare with respect to the genealogy of the 

 Narapatis the Tamra Inscription at Devanhalli, as given on pp. 252-256 

 in the Mysore Inscriptions by Mr. Lewis Rice. 



