________________
No. 1'e.]
PATNA MUSEUM PLATES OF SOMESVARA II.
The main interest of the inscription lies in the fact that it is the first Brähmt inscrip. tion of the Kushåpa period which quotes the month of its date by its Hindu solar name instead of by the season name, which is invariably the case in other Brähmi inscriptions of this period. This remark, of course, does not apply to the Kharoshthi inscriptions, as several of them contain the solar names of months. The inscription is also important for another reason. Hitherto we possessed no inscription dated between the years 11 and 22% of the Kushāna era which was definitely assignable to the reign of Kanishka. The present inscription is clearly datod in the year 14 of that king.
TEXT.
1 Mahārāja-Dövaputrasya Kanishkasya sarhvataarē 10 4 Pausha-misa-divast
10 asmir divasē Prāvarika-Ha[sthisya] 2 bha(a)ryyĀ Sarhgbila bhagavató pitämahasya Sammyasambuddhasya svamatasys
dēvasya pūjärtthath pratima(a)m pratishtha8 payati sarvva-dukkha-prahaņārttham-[ll]
TRANSLATION. On the 10th day of the month of Pausha in the year 14 of the Maharaja Dāvaputra Kanishka, on this day, Sathghila, the wife of Prävarika Hasthi (?), installs (this) image for the veneration of her favourite deity, the Bhagavat, the pitāmaha, Gautama Buddha (lit. who is truly and completely enlightened), for the cessation of all misery.
No. 16.-PATNA MUSEUM PLATES OF SOMESVARA II.
By R. D. BANERJI, M.A.
2.
The inscription edited below is inscribed on a set of three copper-plates discovered in the Baudh State of Orissa by Mr. L. E. B. Cobden Ramsay, I.C.S., Political Agent, Orissa Feudatory States. The plates were sent to the late Dr. D. B. Spooner, B.A., Ph.D., then Superintendent, Archeological Survey, Eastern Circle, who had them sent to Rao Babadur H. Krishna Sastri, the then Government Epigraphist for India. A short note on the inseription was published in the Annual Report of the Archological Survey, Eastern Circle, for the year 1916-17. A set of impressions of the roeord was supplied to me by Dr. D. B. Spooner for publication. Later on, at my request, Sir Edward Gait, I.C.S., K.C.S.I., then Lieutenant. Governor of Bihar and Orissa, kindly lent the original plates to me for examination.
The plates are joined together by a thick ring of copper to which is attached the seal, bearing a lon couchant in relief but no inscription. The first and third plates are inscribed on one side only while the second plate is inscribed on both the sides. The characters used in the inscription are Oriya of the fourteenth or fifteenth century A.D., and are much later than the Sonpur plates of Kumāra Sõmēsvara and the Mahada plates of Yögēsvara
1 Cf. Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXVII, p. 46. Svo my articlo on "Threo Mathura Inscriptions, etc." in the J. R. A. 8., 1924, pp. 800. Page 4, para. 5.
