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No. 31.) SASANAKOTA PLATES OF GANGA MADHAVAVARMAN ; 1ST YEAR.
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of the seal are small projections, of which the one at the bottom side looks like a small knob and bears carved on it a spiral, the significance of which is not apparent. The set with the ring and the seal weighs 60 tolas.
The inscription registers the gift of the village Vēlputtoru in Paru-vishaya as & brahmadeya to the Brihman Dharaśarman of the Vatsa-gotra and Taittiriya-charana by Mahārāja Madhavavarman, son of Kongapivarma-Dharma-mahādhiraja of the Kāņvāyana-götra and the Jahnavdya-kula.
The record is in Sanskrit prose except for the usual imprecatory verses attributed here to Manu as in the Penukonda plates, given in II. 17 to 23.
The script is an early variety of the Southern class of alphabets and is definitely anterior to that of the Penukonda plates of Madhavavarman II (III) of this family discovered in 1914 and published by Mr. Lewis Rice. These plates were then considered to be of special interest as being an admittedly genuine record of the early Ganga kings of Gangavadi, or Mysore. In subsequent years, i.e., during the last quarter of a century, a number of copper-plate grants purporting to belong to the early kings of this dynasty have come to light, mainly in Mysore, and are reviewed in the Mysore Archæological Reports. Some of these will be noticed in the sequel. But it deserves to be mentioned here that the present grant is the earliest genuine copper plate document dis covered so far not only for king Madhava I but also for his family.
The script resembles very much that of the Origodugrant of the early Pallava king Vijaya-Skandavarman II, and is more archaic than that of the Penukonda plates referred to above. The letters of our grant are of a more archaic type than those in the records of the Kadamba king Kakusthavarman whom Dr. Fleet has assigned to a period later than Saka 360.They closely resemble those of the Narsapur plates of Vijaya-Dévavarman, which are in Prakrid prose. Our grant may, therefore, be assigned to a time immediately following the period of Prakrit charters of the Telugu country, i.e., to about the fourth-fifth century A. D. Its characters would appear to be anterior to those of the Pikira grant of Pallava Simhavarman'. In this connection see also Krishna Sastri's remarks on the period of the Pallava kings Simhavarman and his son Skandavarman, respectively contemporaries of Aryavarman and Madhavavarman II (middle of the 4th century A.D.). The letters of the Penukonda plates are more developed and ornate and seem to bear evident influence of the so-called Pallava-Grantha style on the Ganga alphabets. The alphabet of the Kudalur grant of Madhavavarman' resembles that of the latter. This grant says explicitly that Āryavarman and his son Mädhava were crowned respectively by the Pallava kings Simhavarman and Vijaya-Skandavarman. Moreover, as a token of the latter's suzerainty the grant bears, at the top, as preamble, the name of Skandavarman of the Bhäradväja-götra and the Pallava-kula.
The horizontal stroke at the top of several letters is not marked in our grant though a few have it. In this respect our grant resembles the Chendalūru plates of Pallava Kumaravishnu II. It
1 Above, Vol. XIV, p. 331. * Above, Vol. XV, plate between pages 250 and 251.
• Ind. Ant., Vol. VI, p. 23. (But later on he gave up this date (Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. I, part ii, p. 291 and f. n. 1).-Ed.)
• Above, Vol. IX, p. 57 and plate. * Above, Vol. VIII, p. 158 and plate.
• Ibid., Vol. XVIII, p. 149. It should be remarked, however, that the statement made bere regarding the crowning of the Ganga king by the Pallava is at variance with the original (vide Ep. Rep. 1914, pt. II, para. 4 and above, Vol. XIV, p. 333). [See correction, above, Vol. XIX, p. vii.-Ed.]
? Mys. Arch. Rep., 1930, p. 259 and pl. XXIV. • Above, Vol. VIII, pl. between pages 234 and 235.
