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44
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XV.
(L. 20) And on this point there is a verse, sung by Vyāsa: He who confiscates land given by himself or by others incurs the sin of one who kills a hundred thousand cows.
(L. 22) And this charter is written in the thirteenth year; engraved by Chakkradāsa.
No. 5.--ANBIL PLATES CF SUNDARA-CHOLA : THE 4TH YEAR.
By T. A. GOPINATHA RAO, M.A., MADRAS. Some decades ago a Sådra in the village of Apbil, while digging the foundation of a portion of his house, came across the set of copper-plates upon which the inscription edited below is engraved. He made over the plates to a certain R. S. L. Lakshmanan Chettiyår, who had come to repair the Šiva temple in the village, for preservation in the temple treasury. It was this gentleman who, desiring to know the contents of the copper-plates, sent them to Brahma Sri Mahāmahopadhyāya V. Sväminātha Ayyar Avarga! at Madras. Tho learned pandit was pleased to entrust this valuable tind to me for examination and publication. It is from both the original and the excellent impressions prepared under my personal supervision that I edit the inscription below. When the plates came to me, the ring was already cut; the exposure to the damp earth, where the plates lay for a long time buried, has corroded some of them here and there, damaging a few letters; on the whole, the preservation of the inscription is excellent.
The ring carries a well-executed seal, which bears the figures of a tiger, two carpfishes, & bow, two lamp-stands, two chauris and an umbrella, and a Sanskrit verae round the margin, all worked out in half relief. The centre of the field of the seal is occupied by the tiger, seated on his haunches on the right, the two fishes standing vertically on their tails on the left, the bow kept below in a symmetrical manner and the umbrella on the top. The chauris are disposed one on each side of the umbrella, while the lamp-stands, which have each a cloth knotted round the middle, are placed on either flank of the central group of figures. The verse round the seal reads thus :
Sasvat visvambhară-nētram Lakshmi-jaya-[sa]rõruhan säsanam sa svatam srimad-Rājakēsarivarm mana[!]
that is, it states" (This is the irrevocable edict of the glorious Rājakēsari-vaiman, which is the eye of the earth and which is the victorious lotus-flower (seat) of Lakshmi (i.e., fortune).”
The first part of the record is written in the Sanskrit language, while the second part is in Tamil, the former portion is in Grantha characters, the latter in Tamil. A few Sanskrit words occur in the Tamil portion, and these are also written in the Grantha alphabet; e.g., brahma in II. 125, 130, 135, 180, 181, 182 and 184 ; brahmidhirāja in ll. 128, 130 and 181; Kasyapa-gottirattu in l. 127; Jaimini-sūtrattu Nārāyana-Aniruddhanāna and bhūka (bhoga) in 1. 128 ; frimukas in l. 132; sarvua-parihara in l. 181 ; and maddhyasthan in 1. 185. At the end of the document there is a single verse in Sanskrit, and this also is in the Grantha character.
There are not many orthographical peculiarities worth noticing in the document. In the Sanskrit portion both ha and bha and their derivatives are written alike, and practically it is
