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302
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
VOL. XV
The plate measures about 10%" by 7". All the four corners of it are missing. In the preserved portions again the letters are in some places quite efaced and in otber's partly effaced and illegible owing to corrosion. On the obverse side there is a mark right across the middle owing to those portions being peeled off. The upper margin is thicker than the lower, which has become very thin; and thie has made the reading of the last line of the obverse side and the first two lines of the reverse almost impossible. The plate is very heavy owing to the weight of the hcayy seal attached to the middle of its proper right side.
This seal bears in relief a figare of the goddess Lakshmi or Sri, standing on a lotus for pedestal and with two elephants on the two sides of it, sprinkling her with water from two jars lifted by their trunks. Two attendant figures, seated cross-legged at the two sides of the goddess, are in the posture of pouring out something liquid from two round pote. The diameter of the seal measures about four inches. The reverse is a full-blown lotus. Just below the pedestal of the goddess there is the legend in relief
Kumārāmaty-ādhikaranasya, written in characters of the time of the early Gupta emperors. There is a second legend
Lakanathasya, on the smaller seal impressed on the right side of the figure of Lakshmi; but the characters of this smaller legend seem to be similar to those used in the writing of the whole inscription, The use, on the same seal, of characters belonging apparently to two different ages will be disetssed below (p. 304).
The plate is not in a good state of preservation, having suffered a good deal from corrosion, as bas been remarked above. It is incised on both sides, the obverse containing 26 lines, and the reverse 31 lines of writing, which does not seem to have been well-executed; for the letters are not everywhere of uniform size. The characters belong to the northern class of alphabets of the 7th century A.D., "the acute-angled type with nail-heads," which forms the transition from the Gupta to the Nigari alphabet. The letters of this plate correspond to those ased in the Banskheral and Madhuban' plates of Mahārājādhiraja Harsha, the plates of the time of Sasanka-Raja (G.E. 300), and the recently discovered plates of King Bhaskara varmadēva of Kamarupa. Dr. Bloch's remark. that the plate "is written in the characters of the 9th or 10th century A.D. approximately” does not seem to be tenable. Moreover, we find that the horizontal top-strokes are not fully developed-the tops of letters like na, pa, ma, ya, la, sha and sa are left almost open and that all the vowel-signs except those for u, a and ri are at the top of the letters to which they belong. Of initial vowels the plate contains the signs for a (e.g. in adhikarana, 1. 1), a (e.g. in ananda, 1. 39), i (e.g. in iti, l. 15), 2 (e.g. in uttarēna, 1. 31), and ē (e.g. in ētadiya, 1. 32). Of individual consonants the forms of kha, ta, tha and the three semi-vowels ya, ra and la may be marked. The peculiar forms of the following conjuncts are noticeable, viz. ñcha (e.g. in adhikaranan=cha, 1. 1), rya with the superscript r (e.g. in -virryo, 1. 6), ñchlura (e.g. in -īuchhrēshtha, 1. 54), chchhra (e.g. -chuchlirēyo, 1. 34), jjha (e.g. in ojjhita, 1.4), nighya (e.g. in durlanghya, I. 13), jña (e.g. in prajña-, 1. 12), and kshma (e.g. in Lakshminatha, 1. 17). In respect of orthography the following peculiarities present themselves :-(1) no separate sign seems to be used for ba and ra; (2) no other consonant but t and d (e.g. in -kirttih, 1.5, and arddha, 1. 35) is doubled after r; (3) visarga is sometimes assimilated to a following dental sibilant (e.g. in dathitrassa, l. 12, but cf. bhrātuh sutē, 1. 8); (4) the vowel ri is used for the syllable ri (e.g. in trilochana for trilochana,
1 Above, Vol. IV, pp. 210 F. anl plate.
Ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 143 ff. an.l plates. Arch. S. R., 1903-01, pp. 120 ff.
? Ibid., Vol. VII, plate facing p. 159. * Ibid., Vol. XII, pp. 65 fl. and plates.
