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No. 40.) A THIRD PLATE OF THE NIDHANPUR PLATES OF BHASKARAVARMAN. 248
No. 40.-A THIRD LOST PLATE OF THE NIDHANPUR PLATES OF BHASKARA
VARMAN. BY M. M. P. PADMANATHA BHATTACHABYYA, VIDYAVINODA, M.A. When writing on the “Two Lost Plates " of the Nidhanpur plates, I stated, “the rumour goes that a third missing plate is in the possession of a Musalman and efforts are being made to get it from him ". Not having been successful in recovering the plate through other means, I myself went to Nidhanpur (in Sylhet) in April 1926 and purchased this third missing plate from its possessor. From the enquiries I made in this connection, I have come to know that seven plates stringed with the ring attached to the seal were found, about 21 feet below the surface of the plinth of a whilom house, and that the discoverer (Masharral) sold the plates to different persons. Of these, three along with the seal fell to the lot of Babu Pavitranath Das, a local zamindar, who, being an educated gentleman, realised their value and so sent them to Silchar to his friend Rai Saheb Dinanath Das from whom I got them in 1913. Other purchåsers who were illiterate people thought that the plates would some day be conducive to some lucky bargain and kept them hidden until they came to know that the three which were sold to Pavitra Babu revealed nothing but some sort of information quite unprofitable to them and then sold them off one by one at whatever they could make out of them. I purchased the present plate for Rs. 20.
The present plate enumerates altogether 634 shares belonging to 86 persons of 24 gotras of which 19 are new gotras not found mentioned in the plates already dealt with. As the total of these shares amounts to 166H, evidently there must be at least one more plate to complete the set, otherwise, the fraction will be inexplicable.
Whether the plate under consideration is the fourth or the fifth one of the set, it is very difficult to decide. The third plate ends with the complete record of a share and the penultimate plate also opens with an independent record, 80 that none of these plates has any dependence on a subsequent or preceding one, respectively. The present plate, as it has been read and written here, also begins in such a way as it may be considered to be in continuation of the third plate or of the missing plate if that one ends with a complete record of share, like the third plate. I have, however, a suspicion that this plate was inscribed in a wrong way, i.e., what is the first side as shown here was inscribed after the inscription of what is shown as the second side. The first record of share in the second side of the plate does not give the proper name of the donee, which is not found even at the end of the first side. Again, the name of the last donee mentioned in the second side, viz., Gominaga, ends in "näga " which also occurs in the first name recorded in the first side of the plate. Generally we observe that the names whose latter halves or component parts are similar (e.g., ghosha, dāma, kunde, palita, soma, etc.,) are put down in close proximity to one another. In these circumstances it would appear that the proper name missing in the beginning of the second side (which may really be the first side) of this plate must be at the end of the plate not yet discovered. In that case, the missing plate will be the fourth, and the present one the fifth plate of the set that is said to have consisted of seven plates.
This document-viz., the copper-plate grant as renewed by Bhāskara varman-has a spocial bearing on the ancient history of Kamarūpa. The genealogy recorded in the first and the second plato gives the names of the kings (with their queens) who ruled
180o above, Vol. XIX, p. 116. *Supra, Vol. XII, p. 66.
