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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XI.
the bottom and the surface, with the mango and the jack-fruit trees, with the betel-nut and the Cocoa-nut trees, with saline soil, with earth and water, with the pits and barren tracts, with the dasāparādhas, with all police taxes (?), immune from all oppressicn, with no access for Chātas and Bhatas, free from any sort of revenue, with all the income both in cash and kind which was (formerly) the king's due, has been granted by me, in the name of the Lord Buddha, for the increase of merit and fame of my parents and of myself, after having touched water in conformity with sacred) injunctions, and getting the grant inscribed in a copperplate with the seal of the "wheel of law" (dharmachakramudra), in accordance with the maxim of bhūmichchhidra, to last as long as the sun and the moon (exist) and the earth endures, to Pitavāsagapta-farman, in charge of the holy sacrificial waters, who is officiating (P) at the Kotihoma, belonging to the götra of Sandilya, of the pravara of the three rishis, son of Sumangalagupta, grand-son of Varalagupta and great-grand-son of Makkaragupta.
(LI. 31-34.) Therefore let it be approved of by you all. By future kings also this gift must be upheld after approval in consideration of the importance of the good merits accruing from gifts of land and also in consideration of the horrors of hell merited by encroachers; and by the dwellers abroad and the cultivators should be made over all customary taxes, etc. (to the donee) After obeying this command.
(L. 34.) There are also here verses enjoining religious usages in this matter (then follow five of the usual imprecatory and benedictive verses).
No. 19.--NILGUNDA PLATES OF VIKRAMADITYA VI; A.D. 1087 and 1123.
BY LIONEL D. BARNETT.
This inscription is here edited for the first time, from ink-impressions sent by Mr. H. Krishna Sastri to Dr. Fleet, and placed by the latter at my disposal. From Mr. Krishna Sastri's Annual Report on Epigraphy for the year ending 31st March 1913, p. 8, para. 11, and p. 13, No. 8, it appears that the original plates were secured by Mr. Rangarajayya, Ax. Kanarese Epigraphical Student, and were transmitted by the Tahsildar of Harpanhalli; the circumstances in which they were found are not stated.
Nilgunda is & village of some size in the Harpanhalli taluka, Bellary District, Madres Presidency. It is shown as "Neelgoonda" in the Indinn Atlas, sheet No. 59 (1828), and as “Nilaganda" in the quarter-sheet No59, N. W. (1901), in lat. 14° 44', long. 75° 57', seven miles south-west-by-west from Harpanhalli. The place is believed to have been a flourishing town some centuries ago; and it possesses a large tank and two old temples, sacred to Anantahayana and Bbīmēsvara respectively; the latter sanctuary, which lies on the bund of the tank and is said to be profusely adorned with sculptures, is probably the very temple of Bhimēsvara to which our ingcription alludes on line 74. The village is called in lines 64 and 77 of our
1 The adjective sa-lacaņā as applied to the granted piece of land occurs in the Beláva plate of Bhöjavarmadēva (above p. 41, 1. 89) indicating perhaps that the land was in a sea-bordering place.
* Cf. fäntyagaradhikrita, abore p. 41, 1. 45.
See Sewell's Lists of Romains, Vol. I (1882), p. 109, from which it appears that the teinple of Anantasayans contains one “illegible" inscription and that of Bhimēsvars sis : see also the Madras Mamal of Administration, Vol. III (1893), p. 349. Mr. Sewell gives the name as Nilagunda, with cerebral nd. The Madras Manual seems to be of the same opinion, it states that the Sanskrit name of the village is Nilavali-pattana, "town of Nilăvati”, and proposes to derive Nilgunda from nila (as = nilavati) and gunte (P gunte), which latter word, ity in Kanares, and means tank. Lines 64 and 77 of the present document effectually dispone of this attempt at etymology : the dental d, though not wory clear in the facsimile, is quite certain in both places in the ink impressions,
