Bunts

ಬಂಟರು ಕೃತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಇರುವ ಕೆಲವು ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳು 

" .............................................In the 8^th century inscriptions, there are references to Āl̟upēndra with the names Chitravāhana and Āl̟uvarasa Gun̟asāgara II. The above inscription suggests that Gun̟asāgara II was crowned as the Āl̟upa king. (K.V. Ramesh and M.J. Sharma. 1978. Inscription Nos. 5, 9, 10, 12, 15 and 16) A Pol̟ali inscription mentions about a person with the Pānd̟ya name becoming Āl̟upēndra. Here a Pānd̟ya king assumes the title, Āl̟upēndra. Thus there are many inscriptions with the Āl̟upa cognomen after the person was crowned as the ruler. There are inscriptions that mention the Āl̟upa rulers by their Āl̟upa cognomen and there are also inscriptions that mention   Āl̟upa rulers by their real name, Āl̟upa. Whosoever ascended to a particular throne, he was conferred the pat̟t̟a cognomen (title) of the throne, as his official name. This system was called parappu leppnu (calling the person by his old name). This tradition is described as:

Put̟t̟i pudar deppunu pat̟t̟ada puder pādu̟nu (removing the name given at birth and conferring the official name).

Āl̟upa was a cognomen. As mentioned earlier by Suryanatha Kamath, Āl̟upas belonged to a farming caste. Instead of saying that all the Bunts were Āl̟upas, it is better to say that there were Bunts who belonged to the Āl̟upa lineage. It is because even at the time of the Āl̟upa rulers, the practice of tracing the origin of a family through the lineage system was very much in place. Names of some of the ruling families of Tulunad and the names of certain Bunt households are the same, e.g. the Sāl̟va lineage and the Nalli clan of the Āl̟upās. ..................................