Epigraphia Indica Vol 18

Author(s): H Krishna Shastri, Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 22

No. 2.]
BAHUR PLATES OF NRIPATUNGAVARMAN.
(This) edict (sasana) was written by Kanakaráma (1. 35 f.). The village granted was divided into 64 shares, of which each of the doneest received one share (1. 36). "The last line (37) contains the names of two further recipients of shares, of whom the first, whose name is doubtful, received one share, and the other, named Choda-Bol, one-third share.
No. 2.-BAHUR PLATES OF NRIPATUNGAVARMAN.
BY PROFESSOR E. HULTZSCH, P .D.; HALLE (SAALE). As stated by M. Julien Vinson, this inscription is engraved on flve copper-plates which were discovered by M. Jules Delafono in 1879'at & depth of about one metre, in the middle of a structure of bricks, at six metres south of the pagoda of Bahür, an important locality on the south of Pondicherry, from which it is 23-5 kilometres distant. The plates are now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. They measure about 91.5 millimetres in height, 20)9 mm. in breadth, and 4:1 mm, in thickness, and weigh altogether 3106 grammes. There is the usual ring-hole, 13.5 mm, in diameter, at a distance of 9-10 mm. from the left margin of each plate; but the ring which must have been originally passed through the holes and borne the royal seal, has not been recovered. It had surely been broken long ago; for the first side of the third plate and the second side of the second one are in worse condition than the other sides. They were no doubt on the outside of the set. This allows us to conclude that the document has been buried with carelessness or in impatient haste.' I am deriving all these details from M. Vinson's article Le collège de Bahour au IXe siècle,' in which he fornis.ed a tentative transcript and translation of the inscription. Years ago I had published a few remarks on it, based on a transcript which had been prepared by a Tamil pandit and supplied to me by M. Delafon. This transcript has been recently printed in full, with some additional remarks, by Rao Bahadur Krishna Sastri. The historical importance of the record now induces me to re-edit it from a set of photographs which M. Vinson had been good enough to send me in 1905. The photographs are not quite perfect and distinct, but nearly every detail of the text can be made out from them with certainty.
The languages of the inscription are Sanskrit and Tamil, and the alphabets are Grantha and Tamil, respectively. There are 32 Sanskrit verses (11, 1-45 and 74-77); the rest of the text is in Tamil prose (II. 45-74 and 78 f.). Grantha letters are occasionally used also in the Tamil portion (Nri, 1. 45; rmma, 1. 46; brahmadēya, 1. 50; vidyastha, 11. 51, 71; vidyābhāga, 11, 52, 71 f.; hā and vyavaste(ethai), 1. 72; sarurapariha, brahma, and datti, 1. 73; Uditodaya and dë, 1. 78; Nripatu ga, 1. 79), and the Tamil syllable rai occurs in a Sanskrit verse (1. 34), while the purely Tami] name Nilaitangi is written in Grantha letters (Nilaitang-iti, 1. 30). In the Sanskrit portion, the secondary form of i is not distinguished from that of i, nor that of ri from that of ra, nor p from v. In the Tamil portion, the length of initial i and o is not marked in éri (1. 72) and odai (1. 69). The secondary forms of i, e, o are the same as those of i, e, o. The length of the vowel is marked in ür, Vāgur, 'Urattūr, rūr, nür, and posi; but the mů of immūnrürum (1. 50) does not differ in shape from mu, and from the lu of -pāluri= (1. 68).
The names of the 64 shareholders are not specified, but the latter are alluded to by the pronoun ētē, these,' which implies that they were assembled in the king's presence when he made the grant. For similar instances of the use of the pronoun tad see above, Vol. IX, p. 59, note 6. The unnamed doneos perhaps consisted of the chief donee Chendisarman and his relatives, and of the four persons who were mentioned as witnesses of the grant in lino 28 f.
1 To the same gentleman we owe the discovery of the Käsākadi plates of Nandivarman (S. I. 1, Vol. II, No. 73).
Mémoiru Orientaux (Paris, 1905), pp. 211-263. Above, Vol. IV, p. 180 f. S. I. I., Vol. II, pp. 513-517.