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An inscription dating backmost to the reign of Vijayanagara ruler Krishnadevaraya has provided the earliest known epigraphical notation to the Bonalu festival successful present-day Telangana, offering invaluable humanities grounds of the antiquity of the fashionable people festival, according to Director of Epigraphy astatine Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) K. Munirathnam Reddy.
Significantly, the grounds states that these rituals and festivals were already successful signifier adjacent earlier the play mentioned successful the inscription, indicating that Bonalu has overmuch older roots than antecedently documented. Scholars person besides noted that practices specified arsenic Bonalu, Rangam, Kunamuggu and Pattnam (also known arsenic Patnam), referred to successful the inscription, proceed to beryllium portion of Telangana’s surviving people traditions to this day.
Munirathnam Reddy stated that the inscription, primitively discovered astatine Gobbur, a borderline country betwixt Telangana and Karnataka, is presently housed successful the State Archaeology Museum, Hyderabad. Written successful the Telugu connection and script, it is dated Saka 1438 (Dhatu year), Jyestha śukla tritiya, corresponding to May 4, 1516 CE, a Sunday.
According to the inscription, definite levies payable to the authorities — including taxes connected Rangam (oracle ritual), Kunamuggu, Gaddapattana and Bonolu — were exempt. It besides records the assistance of lands arsenic sarvamanyam nether the Pedacheruvu and Bollasamudram tanks, successful summation to earlier endowments, for celebrating the Bonalu festival successful the beingness of the deity astatine Kondapalli. The grants were made connected the orders of Rayasam Kondamarasayya.
The Director of Epigraphy, ASI, noted that the find adds an important humanities magnitude to the knowing of the festival, which is present wide associated with the worship of Goddess Mahakali.
Bonalu, an yearly Hindu festival celebrated chiefly successful Hyderabad, Secunderabad and respective different parts of Telangana, usually during Ashada Masam (July-August). Major celebrations are held astatine temples specified arsenic the Sri Simhavahini Mahankali Temple and the Akkanna Madanna Temple successful Hyderabad, and the Sri Ujjaini Mahakali Temple successful Secunderabad.
One of the cardinal rituals of the festival is Rangam, a accepted oracle ceremonial believed to facilitate nonstop connection betwixt the goddess and devotees. During this ritual, a pistillate — known arsenic Vishwamatta oregon Shakti — enters a trance and conveys predictions and messages. During the 2024 Bonalu festivities astatine the Sri Ujjaini Mahakali Temple, which began connected July 22, the oracle ritual drew ample crowds, with the possessed pistillate expressing the goddess’s restitution with the offerings, portion besides issuing cautions and appeals for the twelvemonth ahead.
