________________
No. 23.]
VISHAMAGIRI PLATES OF INDRAVARMADEVA.
The first and third plates are inscribed on one side only while the second plate has inscription on both the sides. The edges of the plates are raised into well-formed rims to protect the writing. The letters of the inscription are big enough and quite clear, their size being a little more than of an inch. There are in all 35 lines, each side having 9 lines on it, excepting the second side of the second plate which contains only 8 lines.
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit and the script used is later in form than that of the Dhanantara plates of Samantavarman which I have already published in this journal. The record is not dated.
135
The object of the inscription is to record that Mahārāja Indravarmadēva of Kalinga, a devotee of Sri-Gokarnesvarasvamin seated on the summit of the Mahendra mountain (near Mandasa in the Ganjam district), granted some land whose boundaries are specified in it and which lay in the Amerasinga village of the Jalamvora-vishaya (district) of the ancient Kalinga country, to Jakshasvāmi-éarman, a Brahman of the Vajasaneya-charana, Kanvasakha and Jatukarṇa-gotra, for the increase of his and his parents' merit (punya). The Dutaka or messenger of the grant was Mahāsāmanta Sri-Nagakheddi. The inscription on the plates was written by Mahapratihara Adityavarman and the king's seal was affixed to it by the minister of peace and war (Mahusandhivigrahiku) Chandapaka. It was engraved by the brazier (Kamsaraka) Dēvapila. The grant was issued from Svētaka.
The record does not state the ancestry or lineage of the king, but there can be little doubt that he belonged to the Eastern Ganga family of Kalinga. A grant of king Indravarman I of Kalinga, otherwise known as Rajasimha, has been published in this journal, under the name of the Achyutapuram plates. The characters of these plates appear to be somewhat older than those used in this inscription. The king Indravarmadeva of the present plates is not the same as that of the Achyutapuram plates. He cannot, I think, be identified with even Indravarman II whose grants have also been published with specific years of the Eastern Ganga era. On palaographical grounds, the characters of the present plates, which are an admixture of the northern and southern types, may be assigned to the eighth or ninth century A.D. These plates are noted as No. 9 in Appendix A of the Annual Report of the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy, Southern Circle, Madras, for 1917-18, to whom they had been sent by me for examination.
TEXT.
First Plate.
1 Om3 Svasti [*[Śve]tak-addhi (dhi)sṭhānāt | bhagavatta (ta)s-char-achara-[guroh*] suka2 la-sha(sa) sanka-sekhara-dharasya sthity-utpa[t*]ti-pralaya-kara
3 pa-hetōr-mMahendracha[la*]-sikhara-nivasi(si)-śrimärt Gokarnṇeśvara-bha
4 ttarakasya charana-kamal-arādhan-avva (va)pta-punya(nya)-nichaya[b] sakti-tra
5 ya-prabh-urañjit-déaha-(a)mante-shakra[b] va(ava)-bluja-va(ba)la
6 parakra[nta]-sa(sa) kala-Kaling-adhirajyē parama-mahēśvarō mātā
7 pitri-pad-anuddhyātō mahārāja-sri-Indravarmmadēva[*] kusali || yathakal-addhyāsi(si)-mahāśā(sa)manta-éri
8 Jalamvora-vishaye
96)manta-räjänaka-rājaputrā(tra)-kumārāmäty-parika-danda
1 See above, Vol. XV, pp. 275-278.
Expressed by a symbol.
[pra[ka raha night bo the reading.-Ed.]
Soe above, Vol. III, p. 128. Read frimuto.
