________________
No. 4.]
THE JURADA GRANT OF NETTABHANJADEVA.
No. 4.-THE JURADA GRANT OF NETTABHANJADEVA.
BY C. R. KRISHNAMACHARLU, B.A., MADRAS. The subjoined inscription was first brought to light in December 1927 when a resident of Phulsara, a village in the Athagada taluk of the Ganjām District, while digging for the foundations of a kitchen-room for the Svapnēsvara temple at the neighbouring hamlet of Deula-Pēdi, discovered a pot containing two sets of copper-plates, each containing three plates strung together on a ring of the same metal. The plates were subsequently preserved in the local temple of Chandrasēkhara. They were obtained on loan from their owner Sjt. Madhava Patro by Pandit Gopabandhu Vidyabhushana, a teacher of the Raja's Sanskrit College at Parlakimedi and published by him in the monthly journal called Vaisya-Vāni of the same district. Mr. Satyanarayana Rajaguru subsequently examined the two sets and published an article on them giving only the text of one of them under the caption The Phulasa ra copper-plate grant of Kirtirājadēva'. Subsequently Sri Lakshminarayana Harichandan Jagadeb, Rajah of Tekkali, edited the present grant giving the text in a rather indifferent manner. This article is not accompanied by any facsimiles and thus provides no basis for verifying either his transcript or his conclusions. I, therefore, requested the Collector of Vizagapatam to secure both the sets for my examination. At his instance the Deputy Tahsildar of Kodala, Ganjām District, forwarded the two sets to me in December 1934. They have been included and reviewed in the Annual Report on South Indian Epigraphy for the year ending 31st March 1935, as Nos. 15 and 16 of Appendix A. The purpose of the present article is mainly to deal with the latter. My reading of the inscription is based on an examination of the original plates and their ink-impressions which have been prepared in my office. As there are also some inaccuracies in the readings of the other grant published by Mr. Rajaguru (No. 15 of App. A), I shall deal with it in a separate article.
The set under review consists of three plates measuring 6" by 27" with slightly raised rims. A thin copper ring, about 31" in diameter, holding the plates together, passes through a ring-hole of about 1" in diameter at the left hand margin. The ends of the ring are pressed together loosely into the tubular bottom of a circular seal 11" in diameter. On the surface of the seal is carved in high relief the figure of an amrita-kalasa which Sri Jagadeb takes to be a pürna-kumbha. The plates with the ring and the seal weigh 79 tolas.
The paleography and orthography of the plates do not call for any special remarks. Mistakes in the latter are corrected in the foot-notes accompanying the text. The following points may, however, be observed : & is used for $ as in sankha and sabda in line 4, etc., kusalinah (1.8), sri for śri (11. 4, 6 and 7), etc. and ó for & in samasta, in 1. 9. V is employed instead of b as in vrimhita in 1. 6; prativaddha in 1. 8. The inscription employs the forms amura (1. 11) and tāntura (11. 19 and 34) for Skt. āmra and tāmra. The consonant following ris generally doubled as in carlier inscriptions, e.g., varijita (1. 11), arkka (1. 13), etc. The use of the form paurnarīsi (probably colloquial) for paurnamāsi in 1. 19 and of nyipti for nsipati (twice in l. 21) deserves notice.
The inscription belongs to the king Mahāmaņdalëśtara Nēțţabhañjadēva (not Nētsibhanjadeva as has hitherto been read by several scholars) and registers the gift, by the king, of the
1 Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society, Vol. III, p. 30. * Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 109.
* Loc. cit., p. 111. It may be recalled here that one of the earlier Bhanja kinge bears the surname or title Kalyäpakalaba', see above, Vol. XVIII, pp. 293 and 295 ff. and Bhandarkar's List of Northern Inscriptions, No. 1497. Vidyadharabbanija of this dynasty bore the title Amoghakalala' (ibid., No. 1500).
