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138
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. XIX.
legend is the figure of the boar standing on a lotus. The figure of the sun is ent towards the proper left of the seal near the head of the boar. The bottom of the seal through which the two ends of the ring are inserted and in which they are fixed, has the petals of a lotus engraved on it, The plates are rather thin and their rims are raised to protect the writing. The material of the plates is pure copper and that of the seal is bronze.
The discoverer of the plates appears to have subjected them to several mechanical and chemical processes of test. The second plate has therefore been broken and a small piece of it has dropped away. In almost all the plates several letters are hopelessly disfigured and could not be deciphered even with the help of a microscope.
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit. There is an admixture of prose and poetry throughout the inscription. Some of the phrases are bodily borrowed from the inscriptions of Amma II such as e.g. the Nammúru grant published in Ep. Ind., Vol. XII, pp. 61 ff.
I propose to deal with alphabets the and orthography of both the inscriptions A and B together, for the sake of convenience. The secondary form of the vowel a, which is called talakattu in Telugu, is a horizontal straight line in B, just as we find the head line in Nagart letters of to-day. Then, again, the secondary form of a in B is very peculiar. It bends at right angles to the horizontal line on the head of the original letter and generally comes down straight to the foot-level of the letter and sometimes is prolonged a little downwards on the right side. e.g. tā, mā (1. 1), and rā (1. 9). Thus it almost resembles the secondary form of a in Nagari letters. The secondary form of a in A goes up in a few cases, directly above the original letter like a tail, e.g. mā, nā (1.1), ta (1.8), hā (1. 23), jñā (1. 24) and jā (1. 39). We find two different symbols for the short and long initial forms of ri in B (see ll. 9 and 35); and in the secondary forms a clear distinction is made in both the plates. In A three different ways of representing the secondary form of the vowel u are seen. The first of them and the one generally used here and in other inscriptions of the period is prominently to be seen in the letter bhu of bhuvana (1.1). The second form, which differs from the first, is found in pu of Haritiputrānām (1.). Both these forms are prominently visible in l. 37. The third form of the secondary u is found in Kalpataru (1.22). Here the secondary form assumes altogether & different shape and resembles the secondary form now used in the Nagari alphabet. All the three forms of u are seen together in line 38, where they can be conveniently compared and contrasted. The first form is used for all the consonants, the second, for m, p and y, and the third is seen only with the consonants and k (11. 21, 23, 25). In B we find only the first and the last of the secondary forms. The last form makes no distinction between the long and short vowel (A. 11, 53, 63; B. 1. 25). The secondary form of 2 is represented in two ways. in A, as in Mahāsēna (1.2), and vallabhêndra (1.4). The first of these is placed on the left side of the letter at the foot almost touching it. The second form is over the letter and is perhaps the precursor of the present Telugu ētvamu. B has two more forms, in addition to the two found in A. The line on the left side comes downwards from the top of the letter as in Velanändu (1. 24). The fourth form, as in afvamëdha (1. 6), and kritaklēša (1. 20), resembles the modern secondary form of o. This may be due to the mistake of the engraver. From a study of the palæography of these inscriptions we find that the Telugu language of that period must have had a short e. In A, for instance, the name of the sub-donee is given as Chandeņa (1. 63), and we can safely infer that the vowel e in the syllable de is short, as it is in the ninth letter in a foot of the metre called Indravajra. We have again in A and
the word Volanāndu with a short e on u (1. 24). This makes it elear that both the short and lorge had only one symbol in writing. The secondary form of a is written in two ways, eg. A. Sarð-nātha (1. 52), pad-ambhoja (1. 54); B. tad-anujo (1. 19), gôtrand (1.2). The first is the combination of the secondary forms of a and i and the second one is an
