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No. 11.) GHUGRAHATI COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF SAMACHARA-DEVA. B3
LA
Koţālipadă is at present surrounded on all sides by big marshes; it is inconceivable that any Bade man could think of a royal settlement in such a water-logged area. But the big fort is there, and brick constructions very often come up unexpectedly from low water-logged places. As correctly gurmised by some scholars, the low level of Kotålipădă appears to be the effect of subsidence due to earthquake. Wo find a new town Navyávakäsiká springing up during the reign of Dharmmaditya which does not seem to have existed in the third year of the same king. The presumption is that, about the fifth or sixth year of the reign of Dharmmåditya, owing to an earthquake, marshes began to form round Koţälipădå which had been a flourishing royal gettlement for the past two centuries and a half, and necessity was felt for shifting the gubernatorial head-quarters to some new and safer rite on more settled land. Koţälipada continued as a district head-quarters, but the value of its land decreased so much that we find almost a whole village, which is described as having long lain fallow, given away to a Brahmin for no consideration.
Where was Navyāvakāsis, the new Divisional head-quarters ? Nāgadēva had his headquarters at Navyävakašikā, which from the very name appears to have been a recently founded town during the reign of Dharmmaditya, in the interval between the plates A and B pablished by Mr. Pargiter.
Ara kāśa means an opening, an aperture, and its derivative avukafika may very well mean a khal, a canal, and the whole name Navyāva kāśikā would mean, the place provided with a new canal. There is a place called Säbhär the Dacca district which contains imposing ruins of a traditional king called Harischandra. Numerous gold coins of the Imitation Gupta' type have been found exclusively from Sábhår. The Dacca Museum cabinet possesses eight such coins from Sābhār. The place contains a fort, 250 yards by 190 yards in area. A water coorse breaks off from the river Bangsai about two miles above the place where the fort standa and after running through the eastern part of the site of the old town, turns to the west and re-enters the river just below the southern face of the fort. The canal, which is undoubtedly in part artificial, is locally called Káțăgångå-the dug-out river'. The ruins of the royal palaces and temples are situated on the south-east corner of this enclosure, outside the Kātagāngā. This old site appears to answer to the name Navyāvakasikå very well. The discovery of Imitation Gupta' gold coins thmughout this site distinguishes it from any other old site in Eastern Bengal and also shows that its foundation goes back to the time we are discussing.
It would thus appear that the rains at Sabhår may be identified with Navyšvakasika. The word Sabhar, a corruption of Sambhāra, means fullness, wealth, affluence. A visit to the site will convince anyone that it was a well-planned city of very great affluence surrounded by an artificial water-course. The latter might have been the cause of its name Navyåvakäsikä, while its subsequent opulence and splendour earned for it the name of Sambhāra—"Wealth and plenty materialised."
It is easy to prove that Kotalipada is the older of the two ancient sites. Below we shall show that the fort at Kotălipădă dates from a period previons to the Guptas, but the discovery of the gold coins of the Gupta emperors exclusively from this site and only coins of the Imitation Gupta' type, which were undoubtedly much later currency, from Sabhår tends to show that the former site is the more ancient of the two. It is needless to notice in detail the gold coins discovered at Koţälipădå or the 'Imitation Gupta' coins from Sabhar. This is done in separate article in the Numismatic Supplement to the J. A. S. B. It may only be stated hero
