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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXIII.
plates. The language is Sanskrit and, excepting a few imprecatory and benedictory verses at the end, the whole inscription is in prose.
The object of the plates is to record the grant of the village Mannātha situated in the Bharukachchha-vishaya to Bhatta-Uchchada son of Adityanāga, a Brahmin of Hētāvuka class who had come out from the district (āhāra) called Lõhigakakshapathaka, who belonged to Kaundinya gotra and was a student of Vāji-Mādnyandina branch of the Yajur-Vēda. The grant was made for the performance of the five great sacrifices' viz., Bali, Charu, Vaisvadeva, Agnihotra and Atithi. The donor of the grant was Jayabhata (III) of the Gurjara family of Broach.
The date of the grant is given at the end both in words and in figures as the fifteenth day of the dark half of the month of Asvayuja of the year 486 (of the Chēdi era) cortesponding to A. D. 736.
Samgulla, the son of Alla, is the scribe and Dēiyaka is the dutaka of the grant. At the end there is the sign manual of Sri-Jayabhata.
Of the three place names mentioned in the grant Bharukachchha stands for the present Broach. It is not possible to locate Lohigakakshapathaka, while as regards the village granted, in the absence of the details about the boundaries, we have to look up for the name of some modern village having greatest possible resemblance with the name Mannātha. I would suggest Manad about a mile and a half north-east of Mehegam on the north bank of the river Narbadā.
The plates under consideration have great historical importance in that they conclusively decide the line of succession of the Gurjara princes, showing at the same time that the genealogy accepted so far stands in need of correction.
The genealogy framed by Dr. Bhagwanlal is given in Bombay Gazetteer and is accepted by Prof. Bhandarkar in the revised list of inscriptions of Northern India'. The line of succession according to these scholars is as follows:
Dadda I. K. 330. Jayabhata I. (Vītaräga) K. 355. Dadda II. (Praśāntarāga) K. 380, 385, 392. Jayabhata II. K. 405. Dadda III. (BĀhusahāya) K. 430.
Jayabhata III. K. 456, 486.
Three plates of Dadda II (Pradāntarāga) dated Saka 400, 415 and 417 have to be left out of consideration because they have been accepted as spurious.
The name of Ahirðla, the son of Jayabhata II and father of Jayabhata III, is known to us for the first time from these plates, and we are now in a position to say that the Nausäri plates of K. 456 are not of Jayabhata III as supposed by Dr. Bhagwanlal, but must be attributed to Jayabhata II. In the Nausäri plates the genealogy stops with Jayabhata II whose description agrees with that of the same ruler in the present record. In the 2nd plate of Jayabhata III dated K. 486 unfortunately the earlier descriptive portion is lost but the description of Jayabhata III is exactly similar to that of the donor of the present grant, which starts from the middle of line 21. These facts conclusively prove that the Nausāri plates of K. 456 are to be attributed to Jayabhata II and the incomplete grant (second plate) of K. 486 and the present record both to
1 Certain other verses seem to occur in II. 30-32.-Ed.) Ab ve, Vol. XX, Appendix, pp. 161 f. Ibid., Vol. V, p. 113.
* VOLI, Pt. 1, p. 114. . Ind. Ant., Vol. XIII, pp. 77 ft.