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No. 19.)
NILGUNDA PLATES OF VIKRAMADITYA VI.
143
inscriptiong Nirugumda, i.e. Nirugunda; and according to the former passage it lay in the Vikkiga seventy, which formed part of the Kökali five-hundred, on which details seu p. 147 below.
The plates are three in number. The first and third are inscribed on the inner side only, the second on both sides. They measure about l' 4" from end to end, and 10% in height, but are not very uniform in size : plate 1 measures about 16" by 1l' at the left end and 10%" at the right, plate 2 is practically 16" by 10}", and plate 3 measures nearly 161 by 10%" Mr. Krishna Sastri states that they were strong on a circular copper ring, about thick and 41" in diameter, the ends of which are fixed into a heavy quadrangular senl, also of copper, which measures about 31" by 3"; the ring had not been cut when the plates reached him. In the centre of the rather deeply sunk surface of this seal is the figure of a boar (the crest of the Chalukyae), running, facing to the proper right; above the boar, in two rows, appear the sun, a chauri (?), the crescent moon, a svastika, and a drum; behind the boar is a symbol which may be a flag-staff or a lamp-stand; below the boar is a legend in Old-Kanarese characters, frimach-Chalukya[Bhajvalla[bha). The weight of the plates, ring, and seal is stuted to be 765 tolas.
The characters of the document are Någari, similar on the whole to those figured in plate V ("Nördliche Alphabete von ca. 800-1200 P. Chr."), cols. 21-23, of Buhler's Indische Palaeographie. They are well and carefully cat, with an average height of about 1" to ". The concluding phrase fri-Saradayai namah, however, is written in letters of the Sárada type,
in height, a foature which is probably due to the fact that the scribe, Mallaya, was a Kashmiri. The language is throughout Sanskrit, with the exception of the Kanarese phrase gandarul-ganda in 1. 41, and the number of clerical errors is remarkably small. Thu collective om-ritvik in l. 15 is worth noting; of. Delbrück, Altind. Syntax, p. 96. As far as line 58 the text is in verge, with a few short connecting passages in prose : and there are some of the standard minatory verses in lines 80-81. The orthography presents no remarkable features : nasals are represented usually, but not invariably, by the anusvāra; v is used for b all through and has been written by me without correction ; final 8 is changed to visarga before initial sibilants; and never appears in place of l.
Our inscription records a grant of the village of Nilgunda and two adjacent hamlets to & number of Brahmans by the Western Chalukya king Tribhuyanamalla-Vikramaditya VI, made in A. D. 1123 in confirmation of his previous grant of the year 1087. It opens with the usual Chalukyan prelude, Jayaty-āvishkritar, etc., and then, after another verse of benediction, invokes a blessing upon the reigoing sovereign. Then begins the pedigree of the Chalukys kings. Fifty-nine sovereigns of this family, we are tolì, ruled formerly in Ayodhyā, and later sixteen of them reigned in the South. After a temporary obscuration their fortunes were restored by Jayasimha I (1. 10), who overcame the Rashtrakūta king Indra, son of Krishna, and slew five hundred other kings. Then came his son Ranaraga (1. 13); his son Pulakēģin I (1. 13); his son Kirtivarman I, the conqueror of the Nalas, Kadambas, and Mauryas (1. 16); his younger brother Mangalisa, who captured the island of Rēvati and humbled the Kalachuri dynasty, reigning as regent during the childhood of his elder brother's Bon (1. 18); and then the latter, Satyāśraya I in other inscriptions styled Pulakëgin II), who conquered king Harsha, i.e. Harshavardhana of Kanauj (1. 19). We are then informed that the next two monarchs were Satyaśraya's son Neďamari (here spelt Nidamari, with i for) and the latter's son Ādityavarman (1. 21). The pedigree then enumerates Vikramāditya I, here called the son of Adityavarman (1. 22); Vikramaditya's son Yuddhamalla (1. 22); his son Vijayaditya, the conqueror of four provinces (1. 22); his son Vikramaditya II, (1. 23): his son Kirttivarman II, under whom the star of the dynasty suffered an eclipse (1. 23) ; & brother of Vikramaditya, whose name is not given, but was possibly Bhima (1. 24); the latter's
