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No. 19.]
ASSAM PLATES OF VALLABHADEVA.
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181
No. 19.- ASSAM PLATES OF VALLABHADEVA;
SAKA-SANTAT 1107. BY F. KIELHORN, PH.D., LL.D., C.I.E.; GÖTTINGEN. These plates belong now to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, to which they were presented! by Mr. W. Winckler, Assistant Executive Engineer of Tezpur, the chief town of the Darrang
district of Assam, Constable's Hand-Atlas of India, Plate 30 Bb. The text of the inscription • has already been published by Dr. Hultzsch, in the Zeitschrift D. Morg. Ges. Vol. XL. p. 42 ff.
I re-edit the inscription from excellent impressions wbich were taken by Dr. Fleet in February 1886, and given to me by him some years ago.
These are five copper-plates, the first and last of which are inscribed on one side only, and each of which measures from 744" to 8" broad by from 51 to 5" high. Plates i to ivare numbered with numeral figures, which are engraved on the proper right margin of the second side of each plate. In the middle of the upper part each plate has a hole, for a ring, which had been cat already when the impressions were taken. The ring is 11" in diameter and thick; on it there slides another, thin pear-shaped ring, the ends of which are joined and were evidently run into the socket of a seal; but the seal is not now forthcoming. Some sides of the plates are quite smooth, others have rims, partly raised and partly fashioned; but, on every side, the writing is in a perfect state of preservation. The engraving is good throughout; the letters are shallow and, though the plates are thin, do not shew through on the backs. The average size of the letters is about to " The characters belong to a variety of the northern alphabet which was used, about the 12th century A.D., so far as I can judge at present, in the most eastern parts of Northern India. They closely resemble those of the Deopara inscription of Vijayasena, published with a photolithograph in Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 305 ff., and apparently also those of the three Sêna copper-plate inscriptions, published with indifferent photolithographs (or lithographs) in the Journal Beng. As. Scc. Vol. VII. p. 43 ff., Vol. XLIV. P. I. p. 11 ff., and Vol. LXV. P. I. p. 6 ff. That this alphabet belongs to Eastern India, is shewn at once by signs like those for (eg. in état, 1. 47), kha (in kha-dalé khalu, 1. 2), tika and niga (in Nihsarkasinhasya, 1. 23, and mangalarya, 1.3), fa (in tafi-prakatá, l. 2), ta (in bhagarate, 1. 1), etc., as well as by the numeral figures on the margins of the plates ; and signs like those for ja, (in jagatám, 1. 3), pha (in saphalita, 1. 15), la (in kha-dule, 1. 2), and especially those for jha (in jhafa, I. 41), and for the initial (in iti, ll. 49 and 54), together with other peouliarities which the characters of this inscription have in common with those of the Deo para inscription, clearly distinguish the alphabet here used from another variety of eastern writing. As a trustworthy photolithograph
II take this information from Dr. Hultzsch's account of the inscription.
? When I suggested to Dr. Hultzsch the great desirability of having the plates photolithographed, he most readily gave his peripinion to do so and himself requested me to re-edit this record. The photolithograph has been prepared under Dr. Fleet's sepervision,
I do not know whether there is numeral figure on the second side of the Arth plate; there is none on the first side of it.
• See above, Vol. IV. p. 255.
The figures for 'l' and 'g' are the same as those used in the Gaga Buddhist inscription, Ind. Ant. Vol. X. p. 343, Plate; that for 2'ocenrs, in the same form, in the last line of the Terpandigbf plate of Lakshmanasons, Jour. Beng. d.. Boe. Vol. XLIV. P. I. p. 12 (where it has been mistaken for '9'), and that for *4' in line 63 of the Kamnuli plates of Vaidyadeva, to be mentioned below. The same plates, in line 68, and the Govindpur inscription of Gangadhara (to be mentioned below), in line 86, have a different form of 1.'
& Illude to the alphabet used, 0.g., in tba Kamauli plates of Vaidyadors of Praujyotisbe, published with a photolitbograph in Ep. Ind. Vol. II. p. 347 R. One special feature of that alphabet, which is essentially the same ne that of tbe Govindpar inscription of the poet Gangadhari, published ibid. p. 330 f., is, that many letters, at tbe top, have a kind of triangle. And another peculiarity is, that the latter before another consonant, is denoted by short line which is sideways attached, on the proper right, to the middle of the akahara of bicb forma part. In the Govindpur inscription is so written in all conjoncts in the Kamsali plates, this
