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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. IV.
No. 12.-KAMAULI COPPER-PLATE OF THE SINGARA VATSARAJA;
[VIKRAMA-]SAMVAT 1191.
By F. KIELHORN, PH.D., LL.D., C.L.E.; GÖTTINGEN. This is one of the twenty-five copper-plate inscriptions (the only one of which no account has yet been published) which are said to have been found in October 1892 at the village of Kamauli near Benares, and which are now deposited in the Provincial Museum at Lucknow. I edit it from excellent impressions, kindly supplied by Dr. A. Führer.
The inscription is on a single plate, which is engraved on one face only, and measures about 1' 4" broad by 1'*"high. In the upper part the plate has a ring-hole, about 1' in diameter; and it contains 25 lines of writing which is in an excellent state of preservation. The size of the letters is about". The characters are Någari, and the language is Sanskfit. As regards orthography, it will suffice to state that the writer (or engraver) has employed ten times a sign which may have been meant by him to be the sign for b, but which in some places looks like the sign for y and in others like that for p, and is used seven times to denote v and three times to denote b; and that in general, especially towards the end, he has done his work in so slovenly & manner that the text abounds in errors of all kinds. The inscription is composed on the model of the inscriptions of Govindachandra, published above, p. 99 ff., and the formal (prose) part of it, from line 14 to line 21, and the passage referring to Govindachandra in lines 5-8, are nearly identical with the corresponding parts of Govindachandra's own grants. From those grants the anthor has taken also three verses (vv. 1, 3 and 4) in the introductory part of the inscription." To these he has added six verses of his own (vv. 2 and 5-9), one of which (v. 9) cannot be properly construed, while nearly all of them contain offences against the rules of grammar.
The inscription, opening with verse 1 of Gòvindachandra's inscriptions, which invokes the blessing of the goddess Sri (or Lakshmt), in verses 2-4 gives the well-known genealogy of Govindachandra of Kanauj, and in lines 5-8 refers itself to the reign of that king, in terms with which we are familiar from his own grants. The author then, in verses 5-9, gives the genealogy of the donor, who must be understood to have been a subordinate or feudatory chief of Gôyindachandra. A certain Kamalapåla, who had come from Sringarôţa, by his intelligence and bravery acquired for himself a rája-patti, s. e. 'a royal fillet or tiara,' (probably bestowed on him by one of Govindachandra's predecessors). His son was Sülhaņa or Alhaņa (?). He had a son named Kumâra, a jewel at the head of the illustrious Singara family, always an object of reverence for princes,' who apparently was alive when the inscription was composed. And his son was Lôhadadêve, also called Vatsaråja, & warrior chief who humbled enemies and gave delight to friends and relatives. In lines 14-21, this Maharajaputra (or Maharaja's son) Vatsarajadêva, of the Singara family and the Såndilya götra, records that, at the Kanyasamkranti, on Tuesday, the 8th tithi of the bright half of Bhadrapada of the year 1191 (given both in words and in decimal figures), after bathing in the Ganges at the Avimukta kshetra of Benares, he granted the village of Ambavara in the Râpadi (or Råvadi) district to the Thakkura Dalhūsarman, & son of Brahman and son's son of Vaja, of the Gads family, a Brahman of the Vatsabhârgava gôtra with the five pravaras Bhargava, Chyâvana, Âpnavâna, Aurva and Jámadagns; and he orders the people concerned to pay to the donee the bhagabhagakara, kutaka and other customary taxes. The grant then, in lines 21-25, quotes six of the ordinary benedictive and imprecatory verses, and ends with the words : This copper-plate
See Ep. Ind. Vol. II. p. 347, and above, p. 97. The comme cement of verse 8, also, has been taken from verse is Govindachandra's krante. Compare the similar term inl.paffa in Ep. Ind. Vol. II. p. 344.
