Epigraphia Indica Vol 12

Author(s): Sten Konow
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 93

66
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XII,
of Harsha (about 606 A.D.), they could do no material injury to the king of Karnasuvarna, for a very long time afterwards we find Sasanka in power, in 619 A.D. Nor did Sasanka die in battle. Yuan Chwang, who paid a visit to Karnasuvarna, believed that Sasanka died of some foal disease due to his iniquitous persecution of the Buddhists and his demolition of the statues and temples of the Buddha. After the death of Sasanka his kingdom must have passed into the hands of Harsha, who was then in the zenith of his power. Yuan Chwang in the description of his visit to Karnasuvarna does not make mention of any king reigning there. We can presume therefore that it was then absorbed into the empire of Harsha, who could not have allowed the possessions of so great a rival to be included in the territory of Bhaskaravarman, a weaker king to all appearance, however friendly he might have been. It is only on the dismemberment of the great empire of Harsha shortly after his demise, that it was possible for Bhaskaravarman to get any hold over Karnasuvarna. As a matter of fact Bhaskara, who survived his great friend Harsha, rendered valuable assistance to the powerful Chinese invader Wang-hinen-tsi (in 648-49 A.D.) who crushed the usurper Arjuna, the minister of Harsha, who had ascended the throne after his demise. We may assume that Bhaskaravarman was rewarded with the possession of Karnasuvarna, and it may be that in commemoration of his triumphant entry into the capital of. Karpasuvarna this shrewd king of Kamarupa made this grant of land to a Brahman of the locality.
The original copper plates were however soon burnt, but they were forthwith renewed most probably by the donor himself. The fractured, bent and defaced seal-which was apparently not renewed-testifies this fact, which is alluded to in the first verse of the renewed inscriptions and expressedly stated in the last verse.
Let us now take up the second point, whether Sylhet formed part of Bhaskaravarman's territory, and if not, how the plates could be found there. This question would not have arisen at all if the inscription were complete; unfortunately the 3rd plate is missing along with the record of the locality of the land and (probably also) of the domicile of the Brahman who got the grant. If there were any mention of Sylhet-where the plates have been found-it would have been unquestionably taken for granted that Sylhet formed part of the kingdom of Kamaripa during the 7th century A.D. when Bhaskaravarman flourished, and if there were no mention of Sylhet, then the question of Sylhet in this connection would have been out of place. As we have already said, the grant, issued from the camp Karpasuvarna, must have related to a locality within the jurisdiction of that territory.3
The fact that the copper plates have been found in Sylhet does not prove that the land must have belonged to that district. The copper plates inscribed under the orders of Vaidyadeva, king of Kamarupa, were found in Kamauli near Benares City, and the plates now under consideration can have been similarly transferred. The loss of the third plate is also remarkable; the three existing plates have been found tightly fastened by the ring, so that the loss of the missing plate must have occurred before the existing ones could have come over to the place they have been found in. Perhaps the owner of the copper plate grant was dispossessed of his belongings in the course of one of the political revolutions-many of which have
See the Ganjam copper-plate inscriptions of the Gupta year 300, Ep. Ind,, Vol. VI, pp. 143 ff.
The only thing that is indistinctly discernible in the seal is the front part of the figure of an elephant, which also occurs in the seals of the later kings of Kamarupa, who claimed descent from Naraka and Bhagadatta.
There is an internal evidence in support of this. In the incomplete description of the boundaries of the land granted we have the mention of Ganginika in three out of the five sides, and this term occurs in another inscription (viz., Dharmapala's copper plate grant, Ep. Ind., Vol. IV, pp. 243 ff.) which relates to the same locality, .e. Northern Bengal, where even now the word gängina is used to denote a dried river bed.
Tide Ep. Ind., Vol. II, pp. 347 ft.