Epigraphia Indica Vol 17

Author(s): F W Thomas, H Krishna Sastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 18

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
VOLUME XVII
No. 1.-GUDIMALLAM PLATES OF THE BANA KING VIKRAMADITYA II.
By Professor E. Hultzsco, PA.D.; HALLE (SAALE). These plates were found at Gudimallam in the Kalahasti Zamindårl, and were forwarded to Rao Bahadur H. Krishna Sastri by Mr. K. Raghaviah of Kalahasti. They have been acquired for the Government Central Museum, Madras.
The copper-plates are fipe in number and have nine faces of writing, the outer side of the first plate being left blank. The plates are not raised into rims for the protection of the writing, which is, however, in good preservation. They measure 77' in length and 33" in breadth, and are strung on a copper ring, which measures about 2t" in diameter, and the two ends of which are fixed in a circular seal. The hole through which the ring is passed was enlarged after the inscription had been already engraved. This led to the total or partial destruction of some letters, a few of which were subsequently engraved a second time below the ring-hole. The seal bears, in relief, the figure of a bull couchant, facing the proper right, and above it what looks like a lamp-stand and a crescent. The weight of the plates with ring and seal is 133 tolas.
The alphabet is old Grantha (11. 1-58) and old Tamil (1. 53 f.). In the Grantha portion the superscribed is not always distinguished from i, nor the subscribed form of pi from that of t. Final forms of m occur in lines 3, 7, 35, 48, 49, 53. In-dhrik (1. 30), chát (1. 37), and ovan (11. 26, 29, 47) the Viráma is expressed by a small dash at the right of the final consonant.
The Grantha portion consists of Sanskrit prose (11. 1, 14, 33, 37-47, 51-53) and of 22 verses in the Anushtabh and Arya metres. Both the language and the metre of some of the Argi verses are incorrect. In the footnotes on the text I have suggested a few possible emendations, but am unable to furnish a fully satisfactory text and translation of the eight opening verses, which are addressed to Siva. The remainder of the inscription is quite intelligible, but the wording of it is not always correct. The compounds -non-akhya (1. 23), -akhyanāmaka (1. 35), and kidrig-vidha (1. 37) are tautological. In lines 37-39 the author violates the rules of composition by comparing words in the dative plural to nominatives singular; cf. Sahityadarpana, Translation, p. 301, j. In line 50 the neuter yuga is used as a masculine, and in line 53 the neuter likhitam forms the predicate of the feminine prajastih (1. 52). The record ends with a short postscript in the Tamil language.
As regards orthography, au is expressed by o in = 80 (1. 10) and moli (1. 12). The group ksh is replaced throughout by tsh, dm by tm in patma (11. 4, 37), dh by th. in narathipa (1. 24), and perhape ddh by tth in lines 5, 10, 11. The lingual | is used in gaļa (1. 2). The