Epigraphia Indica Vol 17

SR No.: 032571
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: F W Thomas, H Krishna Sastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1923
Total Pages: 426
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 220

No. 13.) A NOTE ON THE GUPTA COPPER PLATES FROM DAMODARPUR. 193
No. 13.-A NOTE ON THE DATES OF THE GUPTA COPPER PLATES
FROM DAMODARPUR.
BY K. N. DIESUIT, M.A. The discovery of the Damodarpur plates has thrown new light on the fortunes of the Gupta dynasty in Eastern India. The plates have been edited by Mr. Radha Govinda Basak above. Vol. xv., pages 113-145. I wish here to point out certain inaccuracies in the readings of the dates as read by Mr. Basak, which I first noticed when I read his paper and subsequently verified by reference to the original plates, now preserved in the Varendra Research Society's Museum at Rajshahi.
The date of the second plate which has been read by Mr. Basak as 129 is to be read as 128. The unit figure which is a vertical line with a slight bend, and a seriph or small horizontal line at the top end, must be taken as the symbol for 8, while the symbol for 9 has a loop at the top.
The fifth plate has lost the name of the reigning Gupta sovereign, but the date has been fairly well preserved. It has been read as 214; but I see no trace of a' ten' in the second figure, but a clear tha ' denoting 20, the date thus being 224. That some Gupta sovereign held sway over North Bengal as late as 224 G.E. or 543 A.D., that is eleven years after the date of the Mandasor pillar inscription of Yasodharman (532 A.D.) is an important result. It is no longer possible to assume with Mr. Basak that the Gupta Emperor who made the grant was Bhanugupta, as the difference between the date of the plate and the only known date for Bhinngupta (vir., 191 Gupta Era) is now 33 years. The fourth and fifth plates seem to be separated by a wider margin than that existing between any other two plates of the Damodarpur find. The intervening period of sixty years, roughly 164-224 Gupta Era (=483-543 A.D.) witnessed the gradual diminution of the Gupta dominion and the slow shifting of the centre of their power to the east. It also witnessed the rise and fall in succession of the Hüņa chieftains Toramana and Mihirakula, and the transitory success of the Malava chief Vishņuvardhana Yasodharman. Other dynasties like the Vardhana' kings of Thanesvar and the Mankhari rulers of Kosala were coming into power on the western outskirts of the Gupta Empire, the latter dynasty in particular having carried on an incessant warfare in Oudh and adjacent regions with the Guptas. It was probably the ascendancy of the Maukhari rulers in Ayodhyā that drove the noble born 'Amritadēva (the donor of the fifth Damodarpur plate) from his native place Ayodhya to the distant Paundravardhana province, which may seem to have been one of the last retreats of the Imperial Guptas. The Jaunpur inscription of the time of the Maukhari Isvaravarman, though not dated, must belong to the same period as the fifth Damodarpur plate, as we know from the Haraha inscription that Isvaravarman's son Innavarman had fully established himself in Oudh by 555 A.D.
No. 14.-SOMALAPURAM GRANT OF VIRUPAKSHA: SAKA 1389.
BY K. V. SUBRAHMANYA AIYAR, B.A., M.R.A.S., OOTACAMUND. This set of three copper-platos, marked No. 2 in Appendix A of Rao Bahadur H. Krishna Sastri's Annual Report on Epigraphy for 1913-14,9 is edited below for the first time with the help of one set of impressions kindly placed at my disposal by him.
The plates are reported to belong to Kuruba ryot of Somalipura in the Bellary taluka of the Bellary District. They were unearthed years ago while digging foundations for a house ; but were secured in 1913, for the examination of the Assistant Archeological Superintendent,
[The reading at the end of 1. 1 in Plate V of the Damodarpar Plater is probably Kamara.-Ed.] See also p. 95, paragraph 26, of the same report,