________________
196
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXII.
37 rart fefu ameanfare । पूर्वस्यां दिशि राजमा[:] ।
पश्चिमा
35 यां दिशि गुवाड टू" देव्या'चीनलदेवि (बी) [*] पंचयों वाययमथेन ।' 30 शासनमिदं पंच चोकमेन सिथि(खि) कहू बीसलयब्देन वाचियः [*]
fafo(f)
No. 30.-ROPI PLATES OF PARAMARA DEVARAJA; VIKRAMA-SAMVAT 1059.
BY SAHITYACHARYA PANDIT BISHESHWAR NATH REU.
This grant of Devaraja is in the possession of Audichya Brahmaņas of Ropsi or Ropi, a village 6 miles south-west of Bhinmal in the Jaswantpura District of Märwär. While touring in that District in 1920, I came across the grant and got it photographed for the Sardar Museum, Jodhpur. It has already been noticed by Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar.
The grant contains two copper-plates inscribed on one side only. The plates, as far as I remember, measure about 9"x8" and have two holes through which are passed two plain rings. The first plate contains 11 and the second 12 lines of writing.
The characters of the grant are Nagari similar to those used in northern India in the tenth or eleventh century A.D. The language is Sanskrit and the clerical errors are remarkably few. The text is in prose throughout with the exception of one verse in ll. 21-23. At the end is found the signature of the donor. The orthography presents no special features.
The object of the plates is to record the grant of a field situated to the south of the city-wall (kōṭṭa) of Śrīmāla, the modern Bhinmal by the Mahārājādhiraja the illustrious Devaraja residing at Srimala to one Aurakacharya, the son of Chandasivacharya and the head of the temple of Siddhēśvaramahādēva at Kshamēmāthuna (Kshatmamathuka ?) on the occasion of a lunar eclipse. The boundaries of the land granted were as follows: to the east the land of the Brahmana Gōvinda, to the south the land of Vamana, the son of Durlabha, to the west the village belonging to the Mahāsāmanta Pūrṇachaṇḍa and to the north the land of the Brahmana Sridhara. The date of the record is the 15th day of the bright half of Magha (Vikrama) Samvat 1059 (=1002 A.D.)."
The witnesses were Matvāka the preceptor of Devaraja and Parnachanda. The grant was written by Suryaravi, the son of Nyasa.
Though no mention of the clan of donor Devaraja is found in the grant, yet on the basis of the year and the place given in it, we may assume that he was a Paramara' ruler of Abu whose
1 Stands for दूतक. '
* Omit. [Or read. Probably she was a lady of the royal family, if not one of the queens.-Ed.]
• Stands for पंचोली.
The stroke is redundant.
Stands for T, one of the two sects of the gut tribe.
See his List of Inscriptions of Northern India, No. 103, where he reads the year as Samvat 1069.
7 [The date is irregular. The full moon of Maghs fell on Thursday the 21st January when there was no lunar eclipse. The nearest lunar eclipse occurred on the full moon of Phalguna corresponding to Friday the 19th February. It is also not verifiable for Samvat 1059 current or Samvat 1069.-Ed.]
For the history of Paramara rulers please refer to my Bharata ke Prachina Rajavaméa, Vol. I, and Rājā Bhōja (both in Hindi).
