________________
322
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. XXVI.
No. 47.--A COPPER-PLATE GRANT OF CHALUKYA VIJAYADITYA; SAKA 632.
BY H. D. SANKALIA, M.A., LI.B., Ph.D., POONA. The copper-plate grant which is edited here for the first time belonged originally to the Satara Museum. It was presented to that Museum by Rao Saheb S. K. Duduskar of Satara. Since this Museum was closed down by the Government of Bombay in 1938-39 and its collection transferred to the newly opened Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute at Poona, the plates are now exhibited in the Museum of this Institute. For a long time the writer was under the impression that the grant had been published before and so no attempt was made to edit it. Subsequent inquiry, however, showed that it had not been published in any of the known research journals. Hence it is now edited.
The grant is engraved on three copper-plates. Of these the first and the third plates are engraved on the inner side only. The plates seem to have been cleaned, subsequent to the presentation, because at present there are no signs of rust except at a few places. They are broken and effaced at several places. Each plate measures about 94 inches by 4 inches. The ring, which originally fastened the plates, is almost round, having a diameter of 3 inches. The seal attached to it is oval, 1-7 inches in length and 17 inches in breadth with a figure of varāha in relief, facing left. The plates weigh 778 tolas and the ring with the seal 481 tolas. Plate I has 12 lines of writing of which large portions of lines 1, 2, 10, 11 and 12 are obliterated. Plate II (a) has 10 lines of writing. This is inscribed clearly in a bold hand, but a few letters, particularly of lines 1 and 2 are filled with verdigris. Plate II (6) has also 10 lines of writing and is the best preserved part of this grant. Plate III has 12 lines of writing. The letters in the first 8 lines are small and crowded together, making the reading difficult, whereas a few letters have become indistinct in the last line.
So far fourteen inscriptions of Vijayāditya are published. Of these seven are copper-plates. In these, except for the grant portion, the text of the inscription is almost identical with that of our plate.
As usual the entire grant is in Sanskrit and in prose but for the benedictory and imprecatory verses.
The script is of the South Indian variety, identical in almost all respects with that noticed in other records of the Chālukya family. Attention is, however, drawn to different types of la, cf. sakala, 1. 2, sakalotta, lines 7 and 17, nikkila, line 21, bala, line 16, sakala, line 30, vilasita, line 38. Gaulu.., line 35, chanchala, line 38, phala, line 41 and pāla, line 41, kulam-alan, line 4, Pulakesi, line 5 and mandala, line 6, lañchhana, line 4, and Chalikyänän, line 4, samunmülita, line 21, and several times in vallabha, lines 5, 7, 9, 14, 19, 31. Dravidian la is met with in päļidhvaja, lines 18, 25, and palāyamānairs, line 26. Initial i is found in iva, line 28, and the sign for upadhmāniya in orasikah parāsimukhio in l. 24, paraih-palāyamānair, lines 25-26 and in visvambharah-prabhur in l. 28. The final m is usually changed to anusvāra, and the consonant reduplicated after T.
The grant is dated on the Kärttika paurnimā of Saka 632, in the 14th year of the rule of the Chalikya king Vijayaditya, Satyäsraya Sri-Prithivivallabha Mahārājādhiraja Paramēsvara Bhattāraka. It records the donation of a village, named Kāruva, near Karahātanagara, on the bank of the Krishna(-Venpā), and a field called ........ -pattikāmeasuring
1 Six of these are published as under :-Ind. Ant., Vol. IX, pp. 125, 130, 132; above, Vol. X. p. 14: Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. IV, p. 425 ; Bharata Itihasa Sanshodhaka Mandala Quarterly, Vol. IX, ii, p. I.
[See foot-note l on p. 326.Ed.).
