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No. 46.]
GANESGAD PLATES OF DHRUVASENA I.
319
the lower end of a well-preserved oval seal, which measures about 2 by 13 inch. The back of the seal is of convex shape. On the front of the seal, a plain oval border, measuring 14 by 1 inch, is divided by a pair of horizontal lines into two compartments, of which the upper one contains, in bas-relief, a recumbent bull which faces the proper right, and the lower one, in raised letters, the usual legend ze. The weight of the two plates is 3 lbs. 7 oz. and that of the two rings and the seal 7 oz.; total, 3 lbs. 15 oz.
The date at the end of the inscription furnishes instances of the numerical symbols for 5, 7, 10 and 200, and the symbol for 300 occurs in line 14. The language is tolerably correct Sanskrit. The proper name Bhatakka (for Bhatárka) in line 3 and on the seal, and the adjective jamala (for yamala) in line 14 are two instances in which the writer of the inscription relapsed from Sanskrit into his Prakrit vernacular.
The plates record an order, issued from his capital) Valabhi (line 1) by Dhruvasêna [I.] (1. 10) and conferring on a Brahmana eight measures (khanda) of land and two cisterns in the village of Hariyanaka, which belonged to Akshasarakaprapa, a subdivision of Hastavapraharani (1. 12). I am unable to identify the village of Hariyanaka and the subdivision in which it was included. The district of Hastavapraharani, Hastakavapráharani, or Hastavaprâhára is mentioned in three other Valabhî grants. Hastavapra or Hastaksvapra, to which it owes its name, has been identified with Hathab, six miles south of Gôghs in the Bhavnagar State, and with the 'Astakapra' of Ptolemy and of the Periplús.3
The Dátaka of the grant was the door-keeper Mammaka, and the writer of the edict was Kikkaka (1. 28). The latter also wrote the three other published grants of Dhruvasêna 1. and the former acted as Dataka of one of these three grants. The date of the subjoined grant was the 15th tithi of the dark fortnight of Vaisakha of the (Gupta) year 207 (1. 29 f.), i.e. A.D. 526-27. Another grant of Dhruvagêna I., published by Professor Bühler, is dated in the same year, which forms the earliest date of the Valabhỉ dynasty that has been hitherto found in inscriptions.
From my translation of the genealogical portion of this inscription it will be seen that I have added a fresh rendering of the passage which mentions the Maitrakas, to the earlier translations of it. In line 1, the original clearly and unmistakably reads Maitrakânám= atulabala-sapatnao. This is also the reading of the published facsimiles of the remaining early Valabhî grants, the editors of which have read sapanna because they had in their minds the reading sampanna, which actually occurs in the later Valabhi grants. As all the earlier grants read sapatna, we must, in the absence of cogent reasons to the contrary, assume that this was also the reading of the original draft of the Valabhi vandvali, and that sampanna, the reading of the later grants, is a mere clerical error. I am obliged to dwell on this detail because the reading sapatna finally disposes of the possibility of construing the word Maitrakánam with the next following compound, and forces us to connect the word with the verb abhavat, which is omitted, but must be supplied to complete the sentence. Whether we
1 The same spelling occurs in another grant of Dhruvasêng I. (Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 205) and on the seals of other Valabhi plates.
. Ind. Ant. Vol. I. p. 45; Vol. V. p. 204; and Vol. VI. p. 10.
ibid. Vol. V. p. 314; Vol. VII. p. 63 f.; Vol. VIII. p. 141 ; Vol. XIII. p. 368; Colonel Watson's Statistical Account of Bhavnagar, p. 106.
Ind. Ant. Vol. IV. p. 105; Vol. V. p. 206; and Vienna Oriental Journal, Vol. VII. p. 300. . Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 206. . ibid. p. 204 ff. 7 See Dr. Fleet's Gupta Inscriptions, p. 167, note 11; and Er. Ind. Vol. 1. p. 89, note 23.
# See the reproductions of the plates of Dhruvasêna I. (Ind. And. Vol. V. p. 206) and of Dharasova 11. (ibid. Vol. VII. pp. 68 and 72; Vol. VIII. p. 302, and Gupta Inscriptions, Plate xxiv.). In the facsimile of a grant of Gubaséos (Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 66) the first akshars of sapatna is doubtful.
