________________
290
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. Xy.
TRANSLATION.
From Valkha, the glorious Maharāja Svămidăse, who meditates on the feet of the Parama-bhattāraka, issues a command to all the royal officers down to subordinates.
Be it known to you that I hereby consent to the brahmadëya grant of a field, the holding of the merchant Aryya and situated in the village of South Valmikatalla-vāțaks in the district of Nagarikā, to the Brahmapa named Munday of the Bandilya götra, to be enjoyed by his Bons, grandsons and their descendants as long as the sun, the moon and the stars endure. All persons attached to us, and those of their household, should approve of his enjoying it, cultivating it and causing it to be cultivated, so long as he does not transgress the conditions of his brahmadēya grant, (because) be has our permission. The dataka (is) Nanna-bhaçţi. The year 80 (and) 7; (the month) Jyēshtha ; the bright fortnight; (the lunar day) 5.
(On the margin) Of the Maharaja the glorious Svāmidisa.
II.-THE GRANT OF MAHĀRĀJA BHULUNDA : THE YEAR 107. The inscription is on a single plate, which is engraved on one face only and measures about 8' broad by 31" high. There is no ring-hole, and it may be held as quite certain that no seal was ever attached. The plate contains .9 lines of writing, which are in an excellent state of preservation. The size of the letters varies between ' and ' in height. The language is Sanskrit. As regards orthography we have to notice
(1) The doubling of d in dh before y (cf. päd-anuddhyato in 1. 1). (2) The doubling of v after (cf. sarcvān=ēva in l. 1, sarvvairuēva in 1. 7).
(3) The use of the Jihvämtliga in 1. 6. The characters belong to the Western variety of the Southern class of alphabets, and are written in a highly cursive manner. This gives them primd facie an appearance of later origin than those of Plate No. I. It appears, however, on a closer examination of the two plates that, although the writing is highly cursive, no individual letter in this plata shows any distinct development. On the other hand the form of subscript y used throughout the inscription Beems to be earlier than that used in Plate No. I. The very close agreement exhibited by the two inscriptions in their style of composition allows us to assume that the year 107 of this plate belongs to the same era as that used in Plate I. There seems to be nothing in the palmography of these inscriptions which contradicts this assumption ; for it must be admitted that, even judging simply from the characters, one would probably be induced to refer this plate to a slightly later period than No. I.
The cursive form is prominent in the letters ch, j, d, d, p, b, bh, m, 2, u, sh, h. It must be noticed, however, that this characteristic also ocours in Plate No. I, although not in such a pronounced manner, in the wavy base-line of p and ch (1. 6) and the indented left limb of the former letter (1. 7), while our plate retains the plain form of 1 (1.4), j (1.2), m (1. 4) and d (1.4). The process of transformation from the obaracters of Plate No. I may be distinctly traced in the different forms of the letters h and j.
Line 8 gives the forms of the numerical symbols for 100, 2 and 7. The symbol for 100 is ja matilated on the left. It closely resembles that used in Gaņēsgad Plates of Dhruvasēna I
1 According to Prof. Basak's construction noticed above the meaning of this passage would be "& command to all the royal officers belonging to mysell." [But see n. 2 on p. 289.-Ed.]
* Idarim: literally now,' 'at present." • Kehätra-padan, which technically means ' place sacred to a deity.' • Pratyaya. For its technical sense holding see Fleet, Gupta Ine., p. 170. . Or 'the Munda Brahmana.' • Ct. the remarks in Indian Palaography, p. 81 F., N. 2.
