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No. 39.]
10 असुदि २ [] लिखितं मर्गे[न] मातृरविया [1] उत्कीर्णं हे कारण
[क]ष्ण
11 सूधारो वरेण ॥
विष्णु ॥
SARANGARH COPPER PLATES OF MAHA-SUDEVA.
नि..........
No. III.
TEXT.
1
श्री [ मत्क] कवीरेण कुलदीपे[न] धीमता । अ3 यमुत्तस्थित स्तश्री यश [:"]स्त [भ]
वोचतः ॥
No. IV.
TEXT.1
मरचन्द्रच मालती ॥
ककस्य कक्कुकस्य प्रयाणि षट् [ ॥ १*] पुणे : कृतज्ञता ॥ स्नेहः प्रिया वास्नागरो वेषः ककुकस्य पृयाचि षट् ॥ [२]
1 [] की काकलीगीतं वज्ञकी 2 विनीता थी सतां गोष्ठी 3 [: न्यायमार्गी 'गुरो[ि*]
1
No. 39.-SARANGARH COPPER PLATES OF MAHA-SUDEVA.
BY HIRA LAL, B.A., NAGPUR.
Sarangarh is the capital of a feudatory State of the same name in the Chhattisgarh division of the Central Provinces. 32 miles south of Raigarh, the capital of another State and a station on the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. The chiefs of these two States are Raj-Gônds. The plates in question are in the possession of the Raj family and first came to my notice in the beginning of the year 1903 at my last visit to Sarangarh. As they were locked up and the keys were not available at the time, the then Superintendent of the State, Rai Sahib Alam Chand, promised to s nd them to me when I asked for them; but my reversion to the executive duties before I could return to head-quarters, followed by Pandit Alam Chand's retirement from service, left them where they were, until the present Superintendent. Munshi Akbar Khân, took active steps in the matter at the instance of Rai Bahadur Panda Baijnath, B.A., Diwân of the Bastar State, and sent them on to me on the 7th January 1908. Thus the recovery of the plates first discovered over forty years ago is as much due to the interest of the above gentlemen as to the readiness of Raja Jawahar Singh to lend them for examination.
281
The exact date and the details of the first discovery are not now forthcoming, but the plates are said to have reached the Bengal Asiatic Society on the 7th December 1864.5 Dr. Rajendra Lal Mitra published them in that Society's Journal in 1866, where he stated that they were presented to the Society by Lieutenant G. Bowie of the Sambalpur Police Corps, but when Dr. Fleet wrote his Gupta inscriptions about 1888, and searched for the plates, he could not
Read प्रियाणि
7 Beni गुरीक्तिः.
1 From the origin 1 stone.
• Ba
see Jurn. Benj. AS Xx
20
