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No. 47.]
RECORDS OF THE SOMAVAMSI KINGS OF KATAK.
355
Lines 60 to 62 praise & minister of the king, named Chhichchhapêsa, holding the office of Sandhivigrahin.
And lines 63 to the end give the date of the thirteenth tithi in the bright fortnight of the month Jyêshtha in the ninth year of the victorious reign of the most devout worshipper of the god) Mahêsvara, the Paramabhaffäraka, Maharajadhiraja,' and Paramosvara, the ornament of the Somakula, the lord of the three Kalingas, the glorious Yayatirajadeve; and tell us that the charter was engraved by a person named Madhava.
F.-Katak Copper-plate Grant of the third year of Maha-Bhavagupta II. This record is now bronght to notice for the first time, I believe. I edit it from the original plates, which I obtained for examination from Mr. Beames in 1883 or 1884. I have no precise information as to where they were found; but it appears to have been somewhere at Katak, or closely in the neighbourhood of that place.
The plates are three in number, each measuring abont 9" long by 7 broad at the ends and somewhat less in the middle. They are quite smooth, the edges of them having been neither fashioned thicker nor raised into rims; and the inscription is in some places & good deal damaged by rust: but it can mostly be deciphered without any uncertainty-The ring, on which the plates are strung, is about " thick and 5' in diameter: it had been cnt, before the time when the grant came under my notice; but there is no reason for thinking that it is not the ring properly belonging to the plates. The seal, in which the ends of the ring are secured, is circular, about 14 in diameter: the surface of it is very much damaged ; and whatever emblems and legend may have been on it are completely broken away.-The weight of the three plates is 6 lbs. 2 oz., and of the ring and seal, 1 lb. 6 oz.; total, 7 lbs. 8 oz. The characters are Nagar, of the northern class. They include forms of the decimal figure 3 in line 73. The avagraha occurs in yathassmábhir, line 35, where it is not really required. The viräma occurs with t, in tasmdt and nagarat, line 12. Final forms occur, oft, in drát, line 11; of, (1) a simpler form, in ddin and sarvedn, line 34, párthivendrán, line 63, and Grêyan, line 68, and (2) a more complex form, illustrated bost by Srimdn, line 14, and samjñán, line 21; and of m, resembling an anusvára with a virdma attached to it or below it, in bharatam, ling 35, and phalam, line 49. The average size of the letters is about ". The engraving is good and fairly deep; but, the plates being substantial, the letters do not show through on the reverse sides. The interiors of them shew the usual marks of the working of the engraver's tool.-In respect of orthography there is nothing to notice, except that v is used for b, throughout.
The inscription is one of Mahi-Bhavagupta II., otherwise called Bhimaratha. The charter contained in it was issued from & city named Yayatinagara, which might be identified with the modern Jajpur, the chief town of the Jajpur subdivision of the Katak District, about fifty miles to the north-east of Katak, but that lines 10 to 12 distinctly imply that Yayatinagara was on the Mahanadi, whereas Jajpur is only on the Baitarani, a tributary of the Mahápadt, and is distant from the latter river as far as it is from Katak itself. And the object of the charter was to register the fact that, on the occasion of an eclipse of the sun, & village named Gaudasimiņilli, in the Kosala-SÅkhangadyan hå vishaya or district, was granted to a Brahman. At the end there is given the date, evidently of the writing of the charter, of Mårgastrsha sukla 3 in the third year of the reign of Bhimaratha, 1.6. of Mahl-Bhavagupta II.
See page 354 above, note &
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