Halmidi Inscription - Discovery and Dating

Discovery and Dating

In a report published in a Mysore Archaeological Department Report (MAR) in 1936, Krishna dated the inscription to 450 AD, on paleographical grounds. Later scholars have variously dated the inscription to 450 AD, 470 AD, 500 AD, "about 500", and "end of the fifth century A. D. or the beginning of the 6th century A.D." Epigraphist, D. C. Sircar has dated the inscriptions to "about the end of the 6th century," and epigraphist Richard Salomon to the "late sixth or early seventh century."

Epigraphist, K. V. Ramesh has written about the differing estimates:

And I attribute the origin of this doubt in their minds to the fact that scholars, even the reputed ones, have held differing views, mostly to prop up their preconceived notions, on the palaeographical dating of any given undated or insufficiently dated inscriptions. ... The undated Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) inscription, allegedly written during the reign of Kadamba Kakusthavarman, is taken by some scholars to belong, on palaeographical grounds, to the middle of the 5th century AD, while a few other scholars have held, on the same grounds of palaeography, that it is as late as the second half of the 6th century A.D.

— K. V. Ramesh

He also hypothesized that, compared to possibly contemporaneous Sanksrit inscriptions, "Halmidi inscription has letters which are unsettled and uncultivated, no doubt giving an impression, or rather an illusion, even to the trained eye, that it is, in date, later than the period to which it really belongs, namely the fifth century A.D."

Epigraphist G. S. Gai however disagrees with the view that Halmidi is a record of the Kadamba dynasty identified with King Kadamba Kakusthavarman. According to (Gai 1992), the inscription, which is dedicated to, "Kadambapan Kakustha-Bhaṭṭōran," refers to another ruler, Kakustha of the Bhaṭāri family, who is explicitly identified in line 13, "baṭāri-kuladōn=āḷu-kadamban;" in addition, the inscription does not "include any of the epithets like Mānavya-gōtra, Hāritī-putra, and most important Dharma-maharājā" that are a part of all Kadamba inscriptions.