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No. 45–STRAY PLATE FROM NANANA
(1 Plate) D. C. BIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 5. 9. 1958)
Sometime ago I received for examination an old photograph of the inscribed face of a copper plate from the Rajputana Museum, Ajmer. There are marks of two ring holes on the photograph and it appears that the inscription was originally engraved on the inner side of two copper plates strung on two rings as is the case with the copper-plate grants of many of the West Indian ruling families. The plate is stated to have been found at the village of Nānāņā about three miles from the Bhagwanpura station on the Western Railway. Bhagwanpura is 27 miles from Marwar Juno tion. The inscription was noticed in the Annual Report on the Working of the Rajputana Museum for the year ending 31st March 1937, pp. 3, 9 (No. 6). There are, however, some minor errorR and inaccuracies in the notices.
In July 1958. Dr. Dasharath Sharma of the Delhi University was good enough to send me a copy of his article on the same inscription published without illustration in the Hindi periodical Marubhārati, Vol. VI, No. 2, July 1958, pp. 2-4. This aroused my interest in the record and I checked Dr. Sharma's transcript with the photograph of the epigraph in my possession. It was found that, while the preservation of the writing is unsatisfactory and some letters here and there are undecipherable on the photograph, there are some palpable errors in Dr. Sharma's transcript and that most of the many lacunae in it could be filled up with confidence. A number of errors were also noticed by me in the introductory part of Dr. Sharma's paper. Dr. Sharma takes the document to be a charter issued by Chāhamāna Alhana of Nadol in V. 8. 1205. But this belief is absolutely unwarranted since, as a matter of fact, the epigraph contains a large number of small documents only one of which records a gift of the said ruler. Dr. Sharma reads vyavansikaThandiva in line 1 and dramaka in line 9 and regards the three words as the names of particular coins, the first to be identified in his opinion with Pāvisā (equal to 5 cowrie shells), the second with Lohadiyā (equal to 20 Pāvisās) and the third with the well-known Dramma (equal to 20 Lohadiyās) also mentioned elsewhere in the record under study. But the first of the two passages in question clearly reads tathā vam(vām) sika-Lhaudiyāka, "and the flute-player [named) Lhaudivāka'. The word read as dramaka is again certainly stama(ba)ka meaning' a bunch [of flowers]'. Dr. Sharma also thinks of the possibility of the word pada in lines 1 and 3 signifying a class of coins. The suggestion is, however, impossible in view of the adjectives shodasama (i.e. sixteenth) and saptarā(da) sama (i.e. seventeenth) qualifying the word respectively in lines. 1 and 3. It may be pointed out that, though Dr. Sharma failed to read saptada sama in line 3, he has read shoda. fama correctly in line 2. Among other errors of omission and commission in Dr. Sharma's reading and interpretation of the record, mention may also be made of his reference to the Kumaradrona of wheat belonging to Sobhikā 'as occurring in line 15 of the record and the suggestion that Kumara-drona may have been a bigger measure of capacity than Drona. As will be seen below, this is all imaginary and unwarranted.
The fragmentary inscription is written in Nagari characters of the twelfth century. But it is not engraved by a single person. There are many records of different dates, which were
For three other copper-plate grants from Nanini, so ibid., pp. 3-4, . Non. 7-9; of. 4. Felin No. A 79.
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