Epigraphia Indica Vol 09

SR No.: 032563
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: E Hultzsch, Sten Konow
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1907
Total Pages: 498
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 28 MB

Page 218

No. 20.)
KANKER COPPER PLATES OF PAMPARAJADEVA.
167
weighing 6 oz. and the smaller 6 oz. 10 drs. The former has an oblong hole at the top. measuring \'xt", apparently for stringing it with other plates. It is uniformly and sufficiently thick, and is in a good state of preservation. The smaller one is thick in the middle but very thin at the ends, so thin indeed that the commencement om svasti has cut throngh the plate leaving holes in the engraved portion, and, similarly, at the diagonally opposite end, a portion is exceedingly worn-out leaving irregular holes there. The corners of this plate were rounded off. It has at the end an ornamental figure representing the moon. This was probably the family crest.
The average size of the letters in the bigger plate is 7" and in the smaller '. The former appears to be a palimpsest. Both the sides contain minute scratches of letters of almost double the size, which are altogether illegible.
The characters in both the plates, which were written at an interval of a year only, are Nagari, and the language in both is corrupt Sanskrit prose. Both the plates were engraved by Sethi or Sào Kesave, who apparently lived at Paại (town).
There is very little to note about orthographical peculiarities. The letters dha, ra, na, ksha, bha, jfia, and the figures 9 and 5 appear in a somowhat antiquated form, and the usual indifference to the use of s for 6 is conspicuous. Spelling mistakes there are many; they have been noticed in the footnotes under the text.
The bigger plate, which is the older of the two and was issued from the Kakaira residence, is a state document conferring a village with a fixed revenge on the village priest Lakshmidharafarman. This refers to Jaipara village, but Chikball is also incidentally mentioned. The smaller plate records the gift of two villages, Kôgara and Åndall, to the same person on the occasion of an eclipse of the sun. These transactions were made by the Mahamandalika Pampardjadêve of the Sômavamsa (lunar race) in the presence of his queen Lakshmidevi, prince Vôpadeve and sight Government officials including the minister. In the village document these officials appear as witnesses. The recipient of the villages was himself one of them.
The village document is business-like and contains abbreviations which were no doubt very well understood at that time, but are now difficult to make out. It does not indulge in genealogies. In the gift, however, we are told that Pamparajadeva meditated on the feet of Somarajadêva, who meditated on the feet of Vôpadêva. I take this Vopadêva to be identical with that of the Kanker stone inscription of the Saka year 1242 (see above, page 124). I shall discuss this question in another paper on the Sihåwå inscription, which also gives a genealogy of this family.
The bigger plate is dated in Samvat 965, in the Bhadrapada month, in the Mriga lunar mansion, on Monday, the 10th of the dark fortnight, and the smaller one in the fávarasath vatsara, in the month of Kärttika, in the Chitri lunar mansion, on Sunday, at the solar eclipse, the year being given in figures at the end as 966. It is not atated to what era these dates belong, but Professor Kielhorn, who has kindly calculated them for me, has conclusively proved that they refer to the Kalachuri era. The reader is referred to the postscript added by him at the end of my article on the Kanker stone inscription (see above, pp. 128 and ff.), where he has fully discussed the question. The English equivalents of these dates, as calculated by him, are Monday, the 18th August A.D. 1213, and Sunday, the 5th Ootober A.D. 1214, respectively.
The towns and villages mentioned in the plates are Kakaira, Padi, Kogari, Andali, Jaipara, Chikhall and Vaņikotta. Käkaira is the modern Kanker, where the present chief of the state resides. It is 88 miles from Raipur, the headquarters of the Chhattisgarh Division, in which the Kanker state is included. Kogard has now been corrupted into Kongöra. There are two villages of this name in the state, and for distinction one is called Deo Kôngêra (8 miles