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106
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XI.
The writing is on the whole fairly correct. There are, however, some places in which the engraver has misread his draft. Thus we find a instead of a in chatvarinśad-, 1. 16; vapi, 1. 17; -charibhyam, 1. 19; samanyam, 1. 24; a for i in -vachchhurita-, 1. 5; a for a in -prasasta-, 1. 7; -paddhatir, 1. 8; -mahattara-, 1. 14; arnnava-, 1. 21; a for è in -modat, instead of -modēta, 1. 25; i for a in ivabōddha, 1. 11; i for i in -maulimanir-, 1. 7; g for i in -vanga-, 1. 23; t for g in -bhotyam, 1. 21; t for n in numattavyaḥ, 1. 25; t for v in -arjjat-, 1. 2; d for p'in -datakaiḥ, 1. 25; dhru for hri in sudhrut-, 1. 12; n for v in -jinyamana-, 1. 6; -nyavastha-, 1. 8,
P for b in -apadha, 1. 23; p for y in apam-, 1. 25; ru for ka in abhishēru, 1. 9; and so forth. Note also the absence of samdhi in -didhitiḥ din-, 1. 5; srishṭaḥ yato, 1. 22, etc., and the confusion of the dual and the plural in Vyasagitau slokā bhavanti, 1. 26.
The plates contain a grant issued from Valabhi by the Mahasamanta, the Maharaja Dhruvasēna bestowing several plots of land in the villages Madkaṇa, Tapasiya and Tinishaka, in the Hasta vapraharani (district), on the Chhandōgas Kumarasarman and Jarabhajin, of the Sandilya götra, residents of Sankaravaṭaka. Hastavapraharani is well known from other Valabhi inscriptions. It corresponds to the modern Hathab, 6 miles south of Gogha in the Bhavnagar State, The lower classes pronounce this name Hathap, and this form is probably the correct one. It can be regularly derived from Hastakapra, but hardly from Hastakarapra or Hastavapra. These forms look like learned Sanskrit versions of an older Hatthaappa and are hardly genuine. Astakapra of the Periplus points to an original Hastakapra. The names of the three villages in the district are not elsewhere known. The grant was issued from Valabhi, the present Walà, situated in 21° 52′ N. and 71° 57′ E. I cannot identify Sankaravāṭaka, where the two donees were residing. The dutaka was the pratihara Mammaka, who appears in the same capacity in the two grants of Dhruvasõna of Samvat 207.3 The writer was the same Kikkaka, who wrote the remaining edicts of Dhruvasena. The date of the grant was the 5th tithi of the bright fortnight of Bhadrapada of the (Valabhi) year 206, corresponding to A.D. 525-26. It is the earliest known grant of Dhruvasena.
TEXT. First Plate.
1 Om svasti [*] Valabhitaḥ prasabha-prapat-amitrāṇā[m] Maitrakāṇām-atula-balasapatna
2 mandal-ábhoga-samsakta-samprahara sata-labdha-pratāpaḥ
pratap-opanata-dana-man
árjjat (v)-ópå
3 rjjit-anuragō-nurakta-maula-bhrita-mitra-śrēņi-bal-āvāpta-rājaśrīḥ para [ma] māhēsvaraḥ 4 sēnapati-Sri-Bhaṭakkah tasya sutas-tat-pada-rajo-run-avanata-pavitrikrita-siras-siro-va5 nata-iatra-chudamani-prabha-va(vi)chchhurita-pada-zakha-pankti-didliti
danatha-jantasy-anujas-tat-pad
paramamaheśvaras-sēnā pati-Dharasēnaḥ
ōpaji
6 n(v)yamana-vibhavaḥ
abbipra
1 Compare the (spurious ?) plate of Drönasimha of Samvat 183 (Journ. Bom. Asiat. Soc. Vol. XX. pp. 1 ff.); the Ganesgad plates of Dhruvasena I. of Samvat 207 (above, Vol. III. pp. 318 ff.); the Bhavnagar plates of Dhruvasena I. of Samvat 207 (Ind. Ant. Vol. V. pp. 204 ff.); the Walá plates of Dharasena II. of Samvat 269 (Ind. Ant. Vol. VI. pp. 10 ff.); and the Bhavnagar plate of Dharasena IV. of Samvat 326 (Ind. Ant. Vol. I. p. 45); see Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 314; Vol VII. p. 53 f.; Vol. VIII. p. 141; Vol. XIII. p. 358; Colonel Watson's Statistical Account of Bhavnagar, p. 106, and above, Vol. III. p. 319.
2 Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 54.
Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 206 and above, Vol. III. p. 323.
See Ind. Ant. Vol. IV. p. 105; Vol. V. p. 206; Vienna Oriental Journal, Vol. VII. p. 300; above, Vol. III. p. 323, and below Nos. II. and III.
Expressed by a symbol.
Read perhaps, with the published plates of Dhruvasena, rajyaśrīḥ.
