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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XX.
No. 10.-PATNA MUSEUM PLATES OF RANABHANJA-THE YEAR 22.
BY R. D. BANERJI, M.A., BENARES. These plates were sent to the late Dr. D. B. Spooner by Mr. L. E. B. Cobden-Ramsay, I.C.S., l'olitical Agent, Orissa Feudatory States, in 1915-16.1 A summary of the contents of the inscription they bear, as drawn by the late Rao Bahadur H. Krishna Sastri, was published in the Annual Progress Report of the Eastern Circle for that year.
The plates are three in number and are joined together by a copper ring to which is attached a seal (13" x 15") which is ellipsoid in shape and bears the legend Sri-Ranabhaftjadēvasya. They are identical in size and measure 71" by 4 each. The first plate is inscribed on the inner side only while the remaining two bear inscription on both the faces. There are altogether fifty-seven lines of writing on these three plates, which are distributed as follows: the first plate has eleven lines, the second, eleven lines on each side ; and the third, twelve lines on each side. The writing on the whole is neat and clear but each line abounds in mistakes due both to the composer and the engraver.
The record is written in incorrect Sanskrit. The first eleven lines of it are in verse. They contain four stanzas of which the first three are already known from the two Baudh plates of the same prince. These verses contain an invocation to Siva and the genealogy of the donor. This grant mentions two ancestors of Ranabhañja, namely, Silabhañja and Satrubhañja, while the Baudh grant (B) names only one, i.e., Satrubhañja, his father. The object of the inscription is to record the grant of the village of Vähiravādā which stood on the banks of the Mahanadi and was included in Dakshinapali and the Khiñjali-mandala, to the god Vijaēsara (Vijayēsvara), by Mahādēvi Vijyä (Vidya) who was the daughter of the illustrious Räna ka Niyârnama. The god Vijaésara is evidently a Siva-linga and the donor, the wife of Ranabhañja himself. The document describes Ranabhañja as a devout worshipper of Vishnu, the tilaka of the spotless Bhañja race and master of both the Khiñjalis, who had obtained the five great sabdas' whose feet were worshipped by tho Mahāsāmantas and who had obtained the blessing of the goddess Stambhēsvari.
Mahanadi is evidently the well-known river of that name in Orissa. Khiñjali is mentioned in several Bhañja grants which have already been published. I am unable to identify the village Vähiravida.
The date of the inscription is, apparently, regular and is given in a half chronogram as Indusvāk-vitanti varise (Indu-väk-vimsati-varshē). Ordinarily this expression would denote the year 2011 of some era but the Baudh plates (B) which are written in the same script as this inscription would show that it stands for 22, vāk being taken in the sense of 1.6
I edit the inscription from the original plates which were kindly placed at my disposal by Sir Edward Gait, I.C.S., K.C.I.E., the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bihār and Orissa.
1 Annual Report of the Archeological Survey of India, Eastern Circle, 1915-10, p. 7, para. 6. .P. 4, para. 6. * Above, Volume XII, pp. 323-28.
• [But våk (vách) does not mean one' though it might stand for four' as it is supposed to have four atagon, namely Pará, Paryanti, Madhyami and Vaikhari.-The reading, however, is not cortain.-Ed.]
