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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
Inscription No. III.
The slab bearing this inscription was secured from the village of Hasanabad close to the ancient remains of Kosam. It was lying near a well and would appear to have been used for sharpening tools and other utilitarian purposes. The slab is rounded at the top and a portion of it is broken off at the bottom. Its present dimensions are 2' 10" in height and the same in width, the thickness being only 3". Only four lines of the inscription now remain in the upper round portion of the stone, but that originally the record covered some more space of the slab is obvious from the traces of aksharas which have survived in the rest of the defaced surface. The characters are similar to those of inscription No. II, like which the record is composed in Sanskrit. The only information of any interest obtainable from the inscription is the name of the ruler which on the analogy of the ruler's name in the preceding epigraph has been read as Mahārāja Sri-Bhadram [ēgha]. It is gratifying to note that in this inscription it is possible to make out the date with a considerable degree of certainty and it is the 5th day of the 3rd fortnight of the rainy season in the year 88. The era unfortunately is not given but if, as seems likely, it was the Gupta era, the corresponding Christian year would be 407 A.D. This, however, is a mere conjecture. Śivamegha mentioned in Inscription No. II and Bhadram[ogha] of the present inscription presumably belonged to the same dynasty about which we at present know nothing more.
160
TEXT.
1.. Mahārājasya śri-Bhadram [eghasya]
3.
2 [Samvatsa]re 80 8 varsha paksha 3 divasa 5 sya Samarasya (?) puttra Him[i]ngana ayayādāvadāra!.
4
[VOL. XVIII
No. 21. TWO COPPER-PLATE GRANTS OF KRISHNADEVARAYA.
BY THE LATE T. A. GOPINATHA RAO, M.A., TRIVANDRUM, AND K. AMRITA RAO, M.A., MADRAS.
The two inscriptions edited below are engraved upon two sets of copper-plates belonging to the Ranganathasvamin temple at Srirangam. They are edited for the first time from impressions prepared under the supervision of one of us.
A.-INSCRIPTION OF SAKA-SAMVAT 1436.
This record (No. 23 of the Madras Epigraphist's Copper-plate Collection for 1905-06) is engraved upon three plates, which are strung together on a ring which bears a circular seal. On the seal are shaped in half relief a boar, the sun and the moon-the usual Vijayanagara emblems. The first side of the first plate and the second side of the third are left without writing, and the rims of the plates are raised. The writing is consequently very well preserved. The plates are numbered with the Telugu-Kannada numerals 1, 2 and 3 engraved on the second side of the first, and on the first side of the second and third plates respectively, to the right of the ring-hole.
The alphabet in which the epigraph is written is Nandinagari, and the language Sanskrit. At the end of the inscription is the word Sri-Virupaksha, the sign-manual of the king, written in the Telugu-Kannada alphabet. The inscription almost always employs the anusvāra, wherever the nasals have to be used. The tin conjunct consonants is usually doubled unnecessarily, as in prattyuha in 11. 4 and 52, in kirttyä in 11. 28 and 44, in vrajedittya" in 1. 45, in avarttya in 1. 55, in ittyukto in 1. 60, ittyādi in 1. 62 and nittya in 1. 65. There occur also omissions of letters in some places, due to the carelessness of the engraver, e.g., t in vyatantt in
1 My attention has been kindly drawn to the existence of the first da in this word by Mr. H. Krishna Sestri The meaning of the compound is uncertain. It may perhaps be interpreted as arya-yadava-dāraḥ, the wife of the noble Yadava, who ever he was.
