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No. 16.]
SIX EASTERN CHALUKYA GRANTS.
127
0.-- BEZVÅDA PLATES OF CHÅLUKYA-BHIMA I.
[A.D. 888-918.] These plates were found on the 25th June 1897 in the rock-hewn chamber of the quarrycompound at Bezvada, in the Kistna district of the Madras Presidency, and were sent to Dr. Holtzsch by Mr. J. K. Batten, I.C.S., the Acting Collector of the Kistna district. I edit the inscription which they contain from an excellent impression, supplied to me by Dr. Haltzsch.
These are five copper-plates, each of which measures about 7" broad by 3" high. Plates 2-5 are inscribed on both sides, but the writing on the second side of the fifth plate is less than half a line. The first plate is inscribed on the second wide only, and on the first side contains. from the proper right to the left, representations of a conch-shell, the sun, and a club.- With perhaps the exception of the first plate, the plates are quasi-palimpsests. On the plates 2-4 the writing which had first been engraved on them is well beaten in, so that only few traces of it remain; but on both sides of the fifth plate the original writing is still so clearly seen that much of it may be made out without any difficulty. The characters of this original writing closely resemble those which were afterwards engraved on the plates; and this, together with the fact that the words at the bottom of the second side of the fifth plate are sa saruvalókatrayatri-Vishnuvarddhana-ma[haraj,' in my opinion, leaves no doubt that these plates originally were used for another grant of Bhima I., which either was not completed or for some reason or otber was cancelled. - The plates have high rims, and are strong on a ring, which had not been cut yet when this record came into Dr. Hultzsch's hands. The ring is about 4* in diameter and l" thick, and has its ends secured in the back of a circular seal, about 27" in diameter The seal bears, in relief, the legend fri-Tribhuvan[á]mkubah, with a flower below it, and, above it, a conchant boar which faces to the proper left and is surmounted by the sun and the moon's crescent, while behind it is an elephant-goad. The writing is well preserved throughout. The characters belong to the southern class of alphabets, of the time and part of the country to which the inscription belongs. As regards individual letters, kh, j, b and I are denoted thronghont by the later, cursive signs; but for the initial i (in Indra, 1. 8) we have here still the earlier form, consisting of two horizontal dots with a wavy line above them. Of special signs for final consonants the inscription only contains one, for ^ (in dattavan, 1. 21, but not in pratapavan,
46)and of letters which occur more rarely, the initial i, ai and 8 (in Itanatah and Airiviyaauntha, 1. 32, and on, 1. 1). The size of the letters is about 1. The language is Sanskrit. except that somo Telaga words occur in the proper dames. In addition to five benedictive and imprecatory verses, the text contains one verse referring to the donor and another which gives the name of the Ajnapti; the rest is in prose, but in lines 15 and 17 reads as if the official who drew up the grant had had verses before him. The text is full of minor mistakes. In respeot of orthography, it will suffice to note the doubling, beforo y, oft in Sattydfraya, l. 6, and Vijayádittya, 1. 13, of - in tanny=éva, 1. 37, and of l in nirmmállya, 1. 44 ; the doubling of before kin yasasskarani, 1.44; the doubling of m after anusvåra in tesharh m'mayd, 1. 40; the employment of tand d for the corresponding aspirates in saprárttito (for samprart thitó), 1. 21, parttivandrán, 1. 42, dharmmartta-, 1. 44, and saduh, l. 45; and the use of the palatal for the dental sibilant in sahabráni, 1. 36.
The inscription is one of the Eastern Chalukya Bhima [1.Vishsuvardhana (usually called Chalukya-Bhima'), of whom no other inscription has yet been found. After having stated (in verse), in a general way, that at the time of his coronation (paffabandha) king Bhima gave away a village in perpetuity, it formally records that the Maharajadhiraja Vishnu. vardhana granted the village of Kükiparru in the Uttarakandesuvagi-vishays to a student
The plates were found together with a set of plates profesing to contain a grant of Vinhonvardbama III. which I consider to be spurious. Bee line 21 of the text of the present inscription.
See Dr. Fleet in Ind. Ant. Vol. XX. p. 104.
