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No. 35.]
DUDIA PLATES OF PRAVARASENA II.
959
that of the ring, the copper band and the seal, 1 lb.; total, 31 lbs. The sise of the letters is about 1." The characters belong to the southern Class of alphabets, and furnish another good illustration of the box-headed' variety of the Central Indian alphabet, of which we find several specimens in Dr. Fleet's Gupta Inscriptions. They are, in fact, almost identical with the characters of the Siwani grant, in Plate xxxv. of Dr. Fleet's volume, and the only letter, the form of which essentially differs in both inscriptions, is l, as may be seen, e.g., from the representation of the words amala-jala in line 5 of both grante. As regards the present plates, it may be mentioned that we have here two forms of " (e.g. in sind sdroh, 1.8), of b (e.g. in brihaspati, 1. 1, and Darbbhamalaké, 1. 16), and of the superscript i (c.g. in admi-, 1. 3, and Namiddsd, 1. 29; balivardda, 1. 19, and likhitan, 1. 29); and that the inscription offers instanees of the signs for final t, *, and m (6.g. in drishtam and Pracarapur[a]t, 1 1, and vasundharan, 1. 27).- The language is Sanskrit, and, excepting the legend on the seal which is in the Anushtabh metre, and one of the ordinary imprecatory verses, here ascribed to Vyse, in lines 27-28, the inscription is in prose. As regards orthography, what will probably strike the reader most, are the frequent non-observance of the rales of external sandhi, and the equally frequent employment of short vowels (partionlarly a) instead of long ones. Of changes permitted in grammar, I would specially point out the doubling of k before , 6.g. in pardklorama, 11. 4 and 25, and waruva-khriyábhis, 1. 22the similar doubling of th and dh before y in Bhdgiratthy-amala-, l. 5, and sarvo[4]ddhyaksha, 1. 13; the doubling of u after anurodra in paradatta[m] ood, l. 27, and sanovatsaré, 1. 28; and the use of the upadhmdniya in bham&h=paficha', 1. 16, and rajñas Pravara", 1. 3 of the seal.---The text contains several compounds which cannot be justified by the rules of grammar, and also a number of wrong forms, for some of which the official who drew up the grant may be held responsible, while others undoubtedly are due to carelessness on the part of the writer or engraver. The phraseology of the formal part of this charter, as well as of the others issued by the same donor, in some respectal differs considerably from that of other copper-plate inscriptions, and exhibits (in lines 19-21) some revenue-terms which have not been met with elsewhere, and of which no satisfactory explanation can 28 yet be offered.
The inscription is one of the Vakataka Mahardja Pravarasena II. It has been written by one Golad Asa (1. 29); and is dated (in 11. 28-29) on the tenth day of the fourth fortnight of the rainy season in the twenty-third year of the Maharaja's reign), while Namidasa was the Sånápati. And its object is, (in 11. 13-18) to record the grant, in the Årammi province or district (rajya),' of 25 bhamis (of land) at Darbhamataka, in the Chandrapura sankgamika, to one Yakshårya of the Kausika gátra, and of 60 bmmis (of land) at the village of Karmakars, in the Firanyapora bhôga, to one Kalisarman of the Kauņdinya gôtra. Beyond this, the insoription yields no information whatever that has not been furnished already by the Chammak and Siwani grants, which were issued by the same Prayarasena II. in the 18th year of his reign. Like those other inscriptions, it opens with the word dyishtam, which I take to be employed simply as a term of good omen, the more so because it is not accompanied here by any other word of anspicious import; and, as is the case with the Chammak grant, this charter also professes to be issued from Prevarapurs. The inscription then, up to line 12
Compare especially line 13-14, 18-21, and 24-26. • Compare the similar use of the word rdskfra in other insoriptions, a.. Page 146 above. * See Gupta Issoription, p. 841, note 9.
• Chandrapura-sainga mild probably means a tract of land near the confluence of two rivers at, or in the neighbourhood of, Chandrapura.
This word, which is used also elsewhere ma territorial term, is quite clear in the original. In line 18 of the Siwani plates we find badga (if this be really the reading intended) wood apparently in the same senso.
• See Oupta Inscriptions, p. 885 I. and p. 948 8.
I See ib. p. 840, note 8. Professor Bühler is inclined to take driedfam in its literal sense and to translate it by seen,' the word indicating, according to his view, that the copy of the grant given to the donces had been scon, and was acknowledged to be correct, by the minister or by the keeper of the recorda ;' see Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 9.
2 L 2
