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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVII.
No. 17-THE NALANDA COPPER-PLATE OF DEVAPALADEVA.
BY HIRANANDA SHASTRI, M.A., M.O.L., OOTACAMUND.
This copper-plate was unearthed by me at Nalanda during the course of my archeological explorations of the well-known Buddhist site there in 1921. As I have already stated in my annual progress report for the year 1920-1921, where1 I have given a tentative account of the document, the plate was found in the antechamber of the so-called monastery B which has yielded many interesting antiques testifying to its past glory. The debris round it and its encrustation showed that the plate must have suffered from the conflagration that destroyed the building in whose remains it lay buried for so many centuries. Fortunately, it has escaped destruction, and excepting a slight injury here and there, the whole of the record together with its seal is practically intact. It has been very carefully treated by the Archeological Chemist and has now become fairly readable.
The plate bears forty-two lines on the obverse and twenty-four on the reverse, each measuring about 1' 4" long, excepting the last line on the second side which is only 4" in length. The inscription is written in early Devanagari script and its language is Sanskrit. The formal part of the grant which it registers is in prose and the rest is in verse, excepting the words om svasti and tatha cha dharmanusansanaslokāḥ, written at the commencement of the first and the second.. side respectively. The seal, which the accompanying fac-simile illustrates, is soldered to the plate and bears the legend Sri-Devapala devasya meaning "of the illustrious Devapaladeva ", written below the emblem of the dharmachakra placed between two gazelles as in the seals of other Pala kings. The wheel or dharmachakra symbolizes Gautama Buddha's unfolding the Law and the diffusion of knowledge to the world that was groping in darkness and the deer refer to the Mrigadava forest which is now represented by Sarnath near Benares where the 'Great Sage' turned the wheel' for the first time while delivering the great sermon to the five monks or 'Pañchavaggiyas'. That the Palas adopted this symbol is but natural for we know that they were staunch Buddhists and patronised learning.
The introductory portion of the inscription, consisting of the first twenty-five lines, is identical with the similar portion of the Mungir (Monghyr) copper-plate grant of the same king that has been edited by the late Professor Kielhorn. It enables us to remove the few doubts the said scholar had in his reading of the record. As is shown by the dates given in the two documents, the Nalanda grant is posterior to the other by some six years though both were issued from the same place, viz., Sri-Mudgagiri-samivāsi-śrīmaj-jayaskandhāvāra or the victorious camp at Mudgagiri, the modern Monghyr in Bihar.
The inscription was written and engraved with considerable care; still a few inaccuracies are to be noticed in it. These have been pointed out in the footnotes added to the text below. As regards orthography, it resembles very much the other grant from Monghyr and there is, perhaps, little to be added to the remarks which Kielhorn made about it while editing the latter document. As to his statements that "the only passages about which I am at all doubtful, and in which the rediscovery of the plate may prove me to have gone wrong are the words suvinayinah in line 5; rajakuliya-samasta in line 40 and karahiranya in line 45",-on the authority of this epigraph, I may say that his reading suvinayinam should be treated as wrong though the translation is right. This plate gives sati kritinam which must have been
14. R. Central Circle, 1920-1921, rp. 87,
Ind. Ant., Vol. XXI, pp. 253-258,
Ibid, p. 253.
