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No. 25.]
SPURIOUS SUDI PLATES.
163
In the same way, the later Mallohalli grant, No. 6,- the characters of which are all suspicious enough, even at first sight ---- is conclusively betrayed by another tell-tale letter. The form of the b used in it (see labdha-bala, line 2, and other words all through the record) is the later one, which, also, in Dr. Burnell's Tables, appears first in his Plate vi., of the alphabet of A.D. 945 or thereabouts (in the lithograph of the grant of Amma II, on which charter the plate is based, for the b, see, for instance, labdha, line 2, balam, line 17, and bandhujana, lino 29). Like the later form of the kh, and by precisely the same records, the later form of the b is carried back to the time of Amôghavarsha I. And, in the same way, it cannot be carried back to an earlier date than A.D. 804: for, the earlier form alone occurs in the Kanarese grant of Govinda III., dated in that year (see the words brihaspati, line 3, gámundabbe, line 5, bandalli, line 8, and all the other words in the record that include a b), and throughout the Wokkaléri grant of Kirtivarman II., of A.D. 757. So, here, again, we have the beginning of the ninth century A.D., as the earliest possible period for the concoction of the record.
The characters of the Nâgamangala grant follow the early forms almost throughout. They are mostly of very good and uniform execution,- considerably more so than would be thought from the lithograph published with Mr. Rice's paper on this record; and, to show this and to illustrate my other remarks, I now give a lithograph of plates i. and iii. b, from my own ink-impressions of the original plates, the opportunity of seeing which I owe to Mr. Rice. And, being of an almost isolated type, they might, at first sight, be easily accepted as belonging really to the time to which they refer themselves. But they, again, are betrayed by the way in which the writer dealt with the letters kh and b. Of the kh, the old form appears in khadga and khandita, line 2, akhyas, line 26, and probably vikhyata, line 38; but in mukha-makha, line 15, mukhaḥ, line 16, dhanushkhanda and nakha, line 30, akhilan, line 38, mukharita, line 40, akhandita, line 52, khanda, line 58, chhakhyan and duḥkham, line 75, and likhitam, line 79, the writer forgot himself, and lapsed into the later form which is subsequent to A.D. 804. So also with the b: the old type is followed in labdha-bala, line 2, and in various other words all through the record; but the writer forgot himself, and gave the later form, subsequent to A.D. 804, in bahala, lines 28-29, ámbara, line 34, balárir (and in the first b of bbahu), line 37, vibudha, line 45, budha, line 48, bana, line 51, babhúva, line 56, bahubhir=bbasudha, line 76, and brahmadéyam, line 80. And so, here, again, the beginning of the ninth century A.D. is fixed as the earliest possible date for the fabrication of the record; a time which is later by at any rate twenty-seven years than the given date of it.
Finally, the British Museum grant aims at producing the old type of characters throughout; including even the kch and b. But the execution of them is very indifferent all through ; and, with the very marked corruptness of the orthography, and the displacing of portions of the text, which has already been noted, it proves, beyond any possibility of doubt, the spurious
Io the Sirur inscription of A.D. 866, only the older form of the b is used. In the Mantrawiqi inscription of A.D. 865, only the later form occars. In an undated inscription of the same king at Nidag uudi near Shiggaon, the two forms are mixed: the older form occurs mostly; but the later forin is found once.
I have said, above, that the characters of this grant are of an almost isolated type. Among published instances, I know none that exactly match them, except those of the spurious grant of Ravidatth from the Coimbatore district (Ind. Ant. Vol. XVIII. p. 362, and lithograph). And the resemblance is so inarked, that it seems very likely that the two records were written, for reproduction by the engraver, by the same hand. There is also a close verbal connection between the spurious Coimbatore grant and the spurious Western Gange records ; the former gives some actual phrases from the latter.- In editing the Coimbatore grant, I expressed the opiniou that the date of its concoction might perhaps be placed about the commencement of the eighth century A.D., but certainly to earlier. As, bowever, it includes the later form of the kh (in mukha, line 4, and chhakhyan and dulkham, line 82), it cannot be placed before A.D. 804.- As in the case of the Merkara grant (see Page 162 above, note 5), the means of determining the exact date of the fabrication of the Nagamangala grant way exist in the names, mentioned in it, of some Jain teachers in the Palikal-Gachchha of the Eregittar-Gaps in the NaudiSamgha in the Mala-Gana.
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