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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXV.
No. 19. TWO INSCRIPTIONS ON COPPER-PLATES FROM NUTIMADUGU
BY N. LAKSHMINARAYAN RAO, M.A., OOTACAMUND.
These copper-plates which were in the possession of a peasant of the village Nütimaḍugu in the Anantapur District were shown to Mr. C. N. Jeevanna Rao, B.E., Minor Irrigation Supervisor of the District, when he had gone to the village during one of his periodical official visits. It appears that while the cattle-shed attached to the house of the peasant was being repaired, the plates were found buried under the lower wooden hinge of the door of the shed. Mr. Rao kindly brought them to the notice of Mr. M. Srikanta Srouty, B.E., Local Fund Assistant Engineer, Anantapur, who sent them on to me for examination. As they were somewhat corroded when I got them, they were sent to the Archæological Chemist in India who was good enough to clean them. I edit them below with the kind permission of the Government Epigraphist for India.
The plates are three in number each of which is 5" in breadth and 93" in length from the centre of the arch at the top. They are strung together on a copper ring which did not bear any seal when the plates were received in the office of the Government Epigraphist for India. It was found that the ring had not been soldered. So it is difficult to say definitely whether this is the original ring which held the plates when they were issued; it is not impossible that the original ring to which the royal seal was attached, might have been lost and the present ordinary ring substituted in its place. The rims of the plates are slightly raised in order to preserve the writing. The weight of the plates, with the ring, is 116 tolas,
At the outset it must be observed that the set of plates is a palimpsest containing two records, one, an Eastern Chalukya grant of the 10th century A.D, and the other, which has been engraved over the earlier inscription, of the time of the Vijayanagara prince Triyambaka, I am unable to explain the circumstances under which the original Chalukya document was used by prince Triyambaka of the first or Sangama dynasty of Vijayanagara for writing his own charter more than five centuries after the original was engraved and why it was defaced and a new one incised upon it.
Of the original Eastern Chalukya grant which I shall call A, both the beginning and the end are missing. The extant portion starts on the first side of the second plate of the Vijayanagara grant (hereafter called B) and after being continued on its second side and on the first (outer) side of the first plate ends on the second side of the latter, after giving the name of the king and the geographical division in which the donated village or land was situated. The portion which must have contained the details of the gift such as the name, götra, family, etc., of the donee, the name of the village or land granted and its boundaries, the date of the grant and the imprecatory verses, is lost. This must have been engraved on a separate plate which was probably removed at the time when the Vijayanagara grant was engraved and the third plate of the present set which is altogether a new one inserted in its place. Both the plates of the earlier grant are inscribed lengthwise like all Eastern Chalukya grants. It should be noted that these two plates have been slightly cut out at both the corners on the top (i.e., on the left-hand side when held lengthwise) in order to give them the shape of an arch like all Vijayanagara copper-plate grants. During this prosess some letters in each line have been lost. The later grant was engraved upon three of the four sides of the earlier one, Even on the side that was not defaced by being again written upon (i.e., the first side of the first plate of B) a portion on the right-hand side is damaged by corrosion and some of the letters cannot be read. On the second side of the second plate of B, only half the portion of the original document has been written upon and the letters on the other half, though well beaten, are visible and can be read. Of the remaining portion of the inscription only faint traces are seen but with the help of the other grants of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty I have succeeded in
