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No. 15.]
THREE GRANTS OF GOVINDACHANDRA.
A-PALI PLATES OF GOVINDACHANDRA AND HIS MOTHER RÅLHANADÊVÎ, OF [VIKRAMA-JSAMVAT 1189.
113
These plates were found at the village of Pali in the Dhuriâpâr pargana of the Bânsgaon tahsil of the Gorakhpur district of the North-Western Provinces, and were in January 1895 presented to the Lucknow Museum by the Collector, Dr. Hoey, who had obtained them through Pirthipal Rai, the Zamindar. They are two in number, each of which measures about l' 11" broad by 10" high, and is inscribed on one side only. The plates have raised rims, and the writing, in consequence, is in an excellent state of preservation throughout. There is a ringhole in the centre of the lower part of the first plate and a corresponding hole in the centre of the upper part of the second plate, but the ring on which the plates were strung is missing. With the plates, however, is preserved a circular seal, about 24" in diameter, which bears in high relief, across the centre, the legend [r]mad-G[6]vindachandradeva, in Nagart letters about high; above the legend, the figure of a Garuda, squatting down and facing to the proper right; and below the legend, a conch-shell.- Each plate contains 17 lines of well executed writing. The size of the letters is about " The characters are Nagari, and the language is Sanskrit. As regards orthography, the letter b is everywhere denoted by the sign for v; the dental sibilant is frequently employed instead of the palatal, and the palatal occasionally instead of the dental; and j is used instead of y in the word júti, 1. 20.
The inscription is one of the Paramabhattáraka Mahárájádhiraja Paramésvara Govindachandradeva. The king records in it that, after bathing in the Sati at the ghaffa of the god Svapnésvars, on the occasion of the Akshaya-tritiya festival in the bright half of the month Vaisakha, he made over to his mother, the Maharajní Balhanadevi, ten nálukas (of land) in the village of Guduvi, in the Goyara pattalá of the Onavala pathaka, as a gift for the Thakkura Jayapalasarman, son of the Thakkura Indrâditya and son's son of the Thakkura Pêvalaha, a Brahman of the Mudgala gotra, whose three pravaras were Mandgalya, Ângirasa and Bhârmyasva. The taxes specially mentioned (in line 26) as due to the donee are the bhagabhôgakara and pravanikara. In line 34 the inscription is dated, in figures only, on Saturday, the 8th of the dark half of Jyaishtha of the year 1189. The grant was written by the Thakkura Vishnu.
The date in line 34 regularly corresponds, for the Kárttikádi Vikrama-Samvat 1189 expired and the purnimanta Jyaishtha, to Saturday, the 29th April A.D. 1133, when the 8th tithi of the dark half ended 15 h. 48 m. after mean sunrise. The preceding Akshaya-tritiya, on which the donation was made, fell on Sunday, the 9th April A.D. 1133, when the third tithi of the bright half of Vaisakha commenced 1 h. 17 m. and ended 23 h. 5 m. after mean sunrise.
The localities I am unable to identify. From the present inscription it appears that the pattald, so often mentioned in cognate grants, was a subdivision of the pathaka, a term which does not occur in the inscriptions of the kings of Kanauj hitherto published, but which is met with also in another Påll plate of Govindachandra that will be referred to below. Another unusual term in this grant is náluka, in line 19. This word apparently is derived from, and is equivalent to, the Sanskrit nalva, a measure of distance equal to 400 (or, according to others. 100, or 120) hastas. The same term occurs, both in the form náluka and in the abbreviated form nálu, in the Kahla (now Lucknow Museum) plates of the (Kalachuri ?) Maharajá dhiraja Sodhadova, the successor of the Mahdrájádhirája Maryâdâsâgaradeva, of V. 1135, of which Dr. Führer has kindly sent me an impression.
1 In other inscriptions the name is both Rdlhanadért and Edlhaddot; see above, Vol. IV. p. 113. The tithi, on which the donation was made, therefore was a kahaya-tithi. See Gupta Insor. p. 178, note 1. See below, p. 114, note 4.
