________________
No. 14.] JVZ JOVI
PATTATTALMANGALAM GRANT C
OF NANDIVARMAN.
No.244RATTATTALMANGALAM GRANT OF NANDIVARMAN.
BY K. VI SUBRAHMANYA AIYER, B.A., OOTACAMUND. sday at (87) seravin adt to seran lazoming out love t
175
In October 1922, when I was in charge of the office of the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy, Madras, Mr. P. V. Jagadisa Aiyar obtained the following set of copperplates from Mr. Rm. St. Sivananda Pillai of Kumbakonam and sent it to me for examination. As I had soon after to go away to Ootacamund, I left the plates to be noticed by Mr. Venkoba Rao in the Annual Report on Epigraphy for 1922-23. The set is marked as No. 5 Appendix A in the Report for that year and finds a short notice in Part II which will be referred to in the sequeli I edit the inscription on the plates with the help of one set of impressions kindly placed at my disposal by M. R. Ry Rao Bahadur H. Krishna Sastri Recently an article entitled " the Kot. rangudi plates of Nandivarman II" has appeared in the Mythic Society Journal, Vol. XIV, pp. 125 to 129 under the editorship of Mr. T. N. Subramaniam. There the discovery of the plates has been described in detailed v baromes a blow out i
13
The set consists of five plates of which the first and last are engraved only on their inner sides. They were driginally strung together on a ring bearing a massive seal, 3 inches in diameter. The emblems and legend on the sealiare sa badly bliterated that they cannot be made out. A couchant bull is all that could be faintly seen. The ring had been cut when the plates reached me and it is not know when and by whom it was cuts The plates measure nearly 10" by 31" and the ring hole, boned at the left margin; is in diameter. The five plates with the ring and seal weigh: 820 tolas and the plates alone greigh 175 tolas prometni pe-aprendre
The inscription on the plates is neatly executed and is in good preservation. The only places where some damage is done to letters are at the commencement of lines 7 and 8 of IIb, lines 1 and 2 of IIIa, lines 5 and 6 of Ib and line 8 of IVb. It has been found possible to restore with certainty all the damaged portions except that in line 1 of IIIa. The reading of the damaged portion in line 6 of Hb is tentative. As is usual with most of the copper-platé charters of South India, this inscription consists of two parts of which the first is in Sanskrit poetry (eleven verses in ally written in Grantha characters and runs from line 1 to line 22, where the second part in Tamil prose commences and runs to the end i.e., line 60. The few Grantha letters and words emploi - "small bortion and sun, and brahmade (1.37), hāram (1. 38), brahmade (142) Jauta (11. 43 and 45), nyx and Ara (1. 43), bhattà (11. 44 and 48), falva (144), Hernlyd (11. 44 and 48), Agnisarmma and gotra (1. 47), de (1. 48), sarmma (11.45, 53, 56, 57, and bey and -Dands (160) tesis
Rayh
A few alphabetical Seculiarities deserve notice The symbol for secondaryt (long) is a con cave curve with a commencing loop engraved on the top of the consonant, while in the case of (short), this Toopsbsent. The three letters mu, pu and u are almost similar in shape, but can be well distinguished on close examination: while the symbol of mu is written immediately below the horizontal line, it is engraved at the end of a vertical downward stroke drawn from the is distinguished a small indenture at the right end of the horizontal stroke. Two forms of of yo occur of which one is a semi-circle with two upward arms on the right side, while the other is a is a simple loop twice wound round. The shape of va is almost that of a triangle with its base at bottom. La has not got the usual convex curve on the right side; it has only an angle. The repha is invariably marked in this epigraph and in most cases the pulli also. The Tamil sandhi rules have to account for the change of into y in perar-brahma (1. 42). But it may be pointed out that the same change noticed in the word vinnappattur occurring before Alappakka (1.97), in raliyar occurring before masai (1. 31) and in Mayilappir before Naudi
Tin of the horizontal in the case of pu. Though lu is formed like pu, it
P.2
