Historian MyNaa Swamy said on Tuesday that three new inscriptions have been discovered on the walls of the goddess Lakshmi temple, which is located within the historic Madhavaraya Swamy temple premises at Gorantla in Sri Sathya Sai district.

Speaking to the media, he said that these inscriptions date back to the Vijayanagara empire and are carved in Sanskrit, Telugu, and Kannada. Of these, two inscriptions in Sanskrit and Kannada, located on the lower sections of Lakshmi temple walls, are completely weathered and illegible. However, the Telugu inscription found on the right side of the entrance provides clear historical and social details.

Mr. MyNaa Swamy explained that the inscription was recorded on ‘Kartika Suddha Padyami’ of the cyclical year ‘Plava’, though the specific ‘Saka’ year numerical is not explicitly mentioned. The Telugu inscription was written using the Kannada script. Based on the palaeography and alignment of the characters, the date has been determined as Shaka Year 1463, which corresponds to Wednesday, October 20, 1541 CE in the English calendar.

The epigraph records that royal officials and local prominent citizens from Gorantla participated in the service of the deity. During this period, the Vijayanagara empire was ruled by Achyuta Deva Raya, the younger brother of Krishnadevaraya, he added

The historian noted that this record also reveals the details of prominent local merchants from Gorantla and their devotional offerings to goddess Lakshmi. The text explicitly records that a prominent businessman and royal official, Tippisetty, son of Potamasetty, participated in ‘Pada Seva’ (devotional service) to the goddess Lakshmi of Gorantla by making endowments.

He said that the merchant title ‘Setty’ (Sreshthi) used in the inscription indicates their high social status and underscores the prominence of trading guilds as powerful economic forces in the Vijayanagara empire. Mr. MyNaa Swamy emphasised that the inscription was crucial in understanding the socio-economic life and the grandeur of local merchant elites in Rayalaseema region during that era. He urged the officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to immediately inspect, officially register, and preserve these new inscriptions.