Epigraphia Indica Vol 03

SR No.: 032557
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 472
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 417

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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. III.
bhavatám, line 8, phalam, line 18, anandyam, line 19, and several other words. The average size of the letters is about. The engraving is good and deep; but, the plates being substantial, the letters do not show through on the reverse sides. The interiors of some of the letters shew the usual marks of the working of the engraver's tool. And the way in which the soft copper was pressed up in the process of engraving, has rendered the lithograph rather indistinct in some places; especially in plate ii. b. The language is Sanskrit. There are the customary benedictive and imprecatory verses in lines 17 to 84; and three ordinary verses in lines 37-42 and 48, 49. In respect of orthography, the only points that call for special notice are (1) the use of the guttural nasal, instead of the anusoára, in trinéattimé, line 44; and (2) the use of e for b throughout.
The inscription, which is styled in line 46, a triphali-tamra-sasana or one copper charter of a connected set of three, the others being C. and D., is one of Maha-Bhavagupta I., who in line 48 is called Kósal-éndra, or "lord of Kôsala." The charter contained in it was issued from the city of Kataka, while the king was in residence at the ârâma or pleasure-garden. And the object of it was to register the grant, to a Bråhman, of two villages named Randa and Alânḍalâ in the Pôva vishaya in Kôsala. The charter was written by a clerk attached to the office of the Mahdsamdhivigrahin Malladatta, on Margasirsha sukla 13 in the thirty-first year of the reign of Maha-Bhavagupta I.
C.
This record is now brought to notice for the first time, I believe. I edit it from the original plates, which I obtained for examination from Mr. Beames in 1883. I have no precise information as to where they were found; but it appears to have been somewhere at, or closely in the neighbourhood of, Katak.
The plates are three in number, each measuring about 9" by 54". The edges of them were fashioned slightly thicker than the inscribed portions, so as to serve as rims to protect the writing; and the inscription is in a state of perfect preservation, except in a few places in the last lines of plate ii. b. The ring, on which the plates are strung, is about " thick and 4" in diameter. It had not been cut when the grant came under my notice. The seal, in which the ends of the ring are secured, is circular, about 11" in diameter. In relief on a slightly countersunk surface, it has the goddess Lakshmi, seated on a throne, with, on each side of her, an elephant, with its trunk lifted up over her head; and, below this, a legend, of which the first letter and the last four are rather indistinct, but which is plainly fri-Mahd-Bhavaguptarájadeva. The weight of the three plates is 4 lbs. 4 oz., and of the ring and seal 1 lb. 15 oz.; total.6 lbs. 3oz.-The characters are of precisely the same type with those of B.; the virama, and the final forms of t, n, and m, are used almost exactly as in B. The average size of the letters is about "The engraving is good and deep; but, the plates being substantial, the letters do not show through on the reverse sides. The interiors of some of them shew the usual marks of the working of the engraver's tool. There are the same peculiarities of orthography as in B.
D.
This record was originally brought to notice in 1882, in the Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. LI. Part I. Proceedings, p. 9. ff., by Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, according to whose account the plates were found at Katak. I notice it from the original plates, which I examined in 1884; they were then in the collection of the Bengal Asiatic Society, having been presented by Mr. Winterscale.
The plates are three in number, each measuring about 8" by 5". The edges of them were fashioned slightly thicker than the inseribed portions, so as to serve as rims to protect the