________________
No. 9.]
FIVE VALABHI PLATES.
105
The seat bears in relief, on a countersunk surface, a recumbent ball, facing the proper right, with a pretty large hump, and below it the legend Sri-Bhatakkah. The bull and the legend are separated by two horizontal lines, of which the upper one is not quite distinct.
The eight plates contain three complete and two incomplete Valabhi grants. The three complete ones and one of the two incomplete ones belong to the Mahasamanta Maharaja Dhruvasēna I. One of them is dated (Valabhi- ] Sarvat 206, two (Valabhi-] Samvat 210, while the incomplete one does not contain a date. The same is the case with the remaining plate, which forms the beginning of a grant issued by Siladitya I. Dharmaditya.
I. PALITĀNĀ PLATES OF DHRUVASĒNA I.; [VALABHI-) SAMVAT 206.
These are two plates, each written on one side only. According to Rai Bahadar V. Venkayya, " the working of the engraver's tool shows itself almost completely on the back of both plates." The length of the plates is 91" and the height 64"-7." The size of the individual letters is about * The plates are, to judge from the impressions, in a very good state of preservation. The first plate contains 14 and the second 16 lines of well executed writing.
The characters are the same as in other old Valabhi plates. They comprise the signs for initial i in Israra-, 1.16, and for dh in Dhindaka-, 1. 17. There are two signs of interpunctuation, vis. a single dot in 1. 18 and a double dot or visarga in 'vaseh instead of vasēt, 1. 27; -Dhruvasēnasyah, i.e. Dhruva sēnasya II, 1. 29. The numerical symbols for 200, 6, and 5 occur in l. 30.
With regard to orthography, we may note that the name of the first ancestor of the Maitrakas occurs in the form Bhațakka, as in all the older plates. The form Bhatarka is a later attempt at Sanskritizing the name, and there is no reason for preferring it, at least so long as we do not know whether the name is Indian or not. The o in -phalopa., 1. 12. looks almost like an i. The dropping of a final t in karis-chi, 1. 23; vasēh, i.e. vasēt, 1. 27, and the writing of s instead of sh in sodasa., 1. 17, are probably Prākļitisms; compare also -Dronasihah siha. 1. 10. Note further the use of an si instead of an in before & in chattarinsad., 1. 16, and chatvāriniad, l. 18, and the doubling of surds, nasals and liquids after an r; thus, -parjjit, l. 3; -manirmmanv., -dharmma Dharmma., 1. 7; -arttha-, 1.11; padavartta-, 11. 16, 17, 18; parvuottara., 1. 18, etc.; but -arka-, 1. 20; and finally, the spelling jy in Jarabhujyi-, 1. 19. The writing jy instead of j recurs in Jyavalar in l. 16 of the plates of Samvat 210, Srivana su. 15, which will be published below. It is comparable with the common modern spelling jy in order to denote the pure palatal and not the sound ds in Marathi districts. This spelling is therefore of interest for the chronology of the change of j to ds in Marathi. Professor Jacobil hasuggested to call the language usually designated Jaina Måhåråshtri, the language of Jaina commentators and poets, Saurashtri. He draws attention to the old Jaina tradition that the ultimate redaction of the Jaina books was made in Valabhi in the year 980 after the Nirvana of Mahavira. It would therefore seem probable that Jains Maharashtri represents the dialect of Valabhi about 500 A.D. Jains MAhåråshtri is closely related to Mahåråshtri, the parent of modern Marathi, and not to Saurasēni, from which Gajarāti is mainly derived. There are also other featares which point to the conclusion that the language of Kathyawar and Gujarat generally has not always been of the same kind as at the present day, but more like the dialects from which Marathi is derived, and it is therefore possible to compare the spelling jy in Valabhi plates and in modern Marathi with each other, though Marathi is not now spoken in the districts where these plates were issued. The writing rajasrih 1.3, where the published grants of Dhruvasēna bave rajyafrih, is perhaps also comparable, the modern change of j to da not taking place in the word rajā.
! The Kalpasitra of Bhadrabahw, Leipzig, 1879, pp. 15. 18.
Piscbel, Grammatik der Prakrit-Spraches, para, 20. See Dr. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, Vol. IX. Part II. pp. 826 1.
