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No. 27.]
TIRODI PLATES OF PRAVARASENA II.
167
35 त्किंचिद्धर्मसंचितम् । अहागुलन सोमाया हरणेन प्रणस्य (श्यति ॥३३॥ न
विषं विषमित्याहुब(ब्रह्मस्वं विषमुच्यते । विषमेकाकिनं - 36 fart a(a)ma grafy upon arrivarni staffiat: peit:
जंडरग्रामनाथीयं लिलखाक्षरसो(शो)भनम् ॥३५॥
No. 27.---TIRODI PLATES OF PRAVARASENA II
By Prof. V. V. MIRASHI, M.A., NAGPUR.
These plates were found some years ago at the Manganese mine of Tirodi, eight miles southcust of Katangi in the Bālāghāt District of the Central Provinces. Mr. T. A. Wellsted, Manager of the Manganese mines, Mansar, who is keenly interested in the history of the Vākāțakas, came to know of their existence in April 1934 and secured them with great difficulty from a Manganese contractor of Tirõdi. The plates have since been deposited in the Nāgpur Museum. I am obliged to Mr. Wellsted for permission to edit them.
They are four copper-plates, each measuring 7.7" by 3-8". The first and the fourth are inscribed on one side only and the other two on both the sides. Their ends are neither fashioned thicker, nor raised into rims; still, the inscription is in a perfect state of preservation. The last plate bears in five places marks of indents from the blows of a pickaxe. About 2.1" from the proper right margin, the plates have a roundish hole.4" in diameter for a circular ring to connect them. The ends of this ring, which is 3.3" in diameter, were flattened off so as to overlap and were joined with a pin. They were so secured when the plates were sent to the Nagpur Museum for cleaning and taking ink impressions. On this ring slides a small circular band about 7" broad and 3.8" in circumference, to which is secured with a rivet a flat circular copper seal 2.7" in diameter. The ring and the seal thus closely resemble those of the other plates of Pravarasēna II. The weight of the plates is 126 tolas and that of the ring, the band and the seal is 18] tolas.
The plates were slightly corroded when first found, but have since been cleaned by Mr. M. A. Saboor, Coin Expert of the Nāgpur Museum. Each inscribed side of the first two plates contains six lines, that of the third five lines and that of the fourth only four lines. The seal contains the legend inscribed in four lines. The letters are deeply cut, but do not show through on the reverse. The size of the letters varies from 25" to .4".
As in the other plates of Pravarasēna II., the characters are of the box-headed variety of the Central Indian alphabet. They closely resemble those of the Siwani plates of Pravarasēna II. and of the Riddhapur plates of his mother Prabhāvatiguptă. The boxes at the top of the letters are not scooped out bollow as in the Chammak plates, but appear in the form of small squares as in the other plates of Pravarasēna II. The letters i, b, and I and the subscript form of m -appear without a box at the top; cf. Vājapēya and BỊihaspati in l. 1 and amala-jala in l. 5. The box is not completely incised at the top of a few letters; see, for instance, n in atyanta 1. 7; chi in kënachi-1. 23; ya in yas-cha l. 24. The répha at the top of letters is, in some cases, shown with, and in others without, a box (cf. chaturvvaidya l. 19, Aptöryyāma 1. 1). The length of medial i is denoted either by a ringlet in the curve representing short i as in pramāni- 1. 29, or by another curve turned in the opposite direction as in trayovisa I. 31. Medial u is shown in three ways
