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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. VL.
No. 18.- ALAS PLATES OF THX YUVARAJA GOVINDA II. ;
SAKA-SAMVAT 692.
BY DEVADATTA RAMAKRISHNA BHANDARKAR, M.A. The copper-plates which bear the subjoined grant were found in the village of Alds in the Kurundwad State, Bombay Presidency, while an old earth-battress was being excavated. The Senior Chief of Kurandwåd, to whom the village belongs, sent the plates to my father, Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar, who made them over to me for publication.
The plates are three in number, each measuring about 91' long by 5 broad at the ends and somewhat less in the middle. The edges are fashioned slightly thicker so as to serve as rims for the protection of the inscription. The grant is engraved on the inner sides of the first and third plates and on both sides of the second plate. They are strong together by a circular ring of about 31 in diameter and of about f' in thickness, passing through holes on the left sides of the plates. The ends of the ring are joined together by means of a large knob bearing a round seal, which measures 1}" in diameter and has, in relief on a countersunk surface, an image of Garuda above a floral device, seated with the palms of his hands joined close to his breast and with his wings raised. The engraving is fairly deep, but not well executed. The letters ka and ma have been most indifferently incised. A few other letters, again, have unusual shapes and consequently are scarcely legible.-The characters are of the southern type which came into vogue at the time of the later Chalukyas of Badêmi. For kha two forms are used, one in line 2 and the other in 11. 7 and 44. The letter la has been written in three different ways, in 11. 1, 9 and 32. The sign denoting the medial ri is invariably reversed in the case of ki. And lastly, the sidestroke towards the left used to signify & is very often attached to the bottom, and not to the top of the letter, e.g. in 11. 11 and 24.-The language is Sanskrit throughout. The grant commences with the usual word svasti. Then follows the cart line sa vô=vydd=mahd-Vishnuh, and not the verse sa vô=vyád=V&dhasd dháma, etc., which we find at the beginning of almost all the Rashtrakata grants. Then nearly 20 lines are in verse, and the rest is in prose, excluding the benedictive and imprecatory verses at the end. Most of the verses are found in the Såmångad plates and in the Gujarat R&shtrakața grants, but all of them occur only in the Paithan charter of Govinda III.- As regards orthography, it is worthy of note (1) that the rules of sandhi are not unfrequently disregarded ; (2) that there is an indifference about the doubling of consonants in conjunction with a preceding r. Thus the consonant is doubled in sarvoarishn (1.2), sarvo-arttinirmmathané (1. 20), etc., but not in gôtramanir-babhaiva (1. 5 f.) etc.; (3) that there is a tendency to the substitution of la for la, e.g. in sakala (1. 22) and Manavalôka (1. 27); (4) that the final m of a word has been twice changed to it before cha of the following word, in 11. 16 and 38; and (5) that the visarga followed by sa, sha or sa is almost invariably changed to that letter, e.g. in bhdpas=sasarkao (1.2), vash=sharo (1. 29), and yas-sahasd (1. 12).
This grant was made by Govindaraja (II.),--the son of Krishṇaraja (I.) (vv. 7, 8) of the Rashtrakūta family (v. 3), surnamed Subhatunga (v. 9), Akalavarsha (v. 10) and Sriprithivivallabha (1. 20 f.). Govindaršja was Yuvarája or crown-prince at the time (1. 24). He had the special birudas of Prabhůtavarsha and Vikramávalóka (1. 23 f.). Of the time of Krishna I. we have no record, and this is the first hitherto discovered that refers itself to his reign. The charter was issued by Govindaraja from his camp located near the confluence of the Krishnaverna and the Musi (1. 26), after he had humbled the lord of Vengi. It is dated, in words, in the six-hundred-and-ninety-second year of the Saka era, on the seventh tithi of the bright half of Åshadha, Saumya being the Jovian year (11. 29-31), ..e, in A.D. 760. The grant was made, we are told, at the request of one Vijayaditya, also styled Manivalóka Ratnavarsha, son of Dantivarman and grandson of Dhruvarája (11. 26-28). The grantee was
Brahmars of the name of Jaggu, son of Sridhara and grandson of Kéśava, of the Bh&radvaja gôtra (1.31 f.).
