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No. 51]
TWO PLATES OF DEVANANDADEVA little is known about the latter's rule at the close of the ninth century, there is no doubt that the era used in the Talmul plate of Dhruvānandadēva is the same as that employed in the records of the Bhauma-Karas. The use of single plates for their charters and the design of their seal also appear to connect the Nanda kings with the family of the Bhauma-Karas. The family seems to have originally owed allegiance to the Bhauma-Karas and begun to rule more or less independently after the latter's decline.
Whether the Nanda or Nandödbhava chiefs of Orissa actually claimed descent from the mighty Nandas of ancient Pāfaliputra cannot be determined in the present state of our knowledge. There may have been a confusion, as Mr. Panigrahi suggests, between nanda and ānanda (the name-ending of the rulers of this family) just as in the case of the Bhaumas of Orissa, who had the name-ending kara and akara and later styled their family as Kara. But this theory can hardly explain the name Nandödbhava also applied to the Nanda family. Unless it is believed that Nandödbhava was a name coined arbitrarily after Sailodbhava, it is probably to be suggested that the Nandödbhavas claimed descent from a certain person or family called Nanda. Considering the facts that the rule of the ancient Nandas in Orissa is actually suggested by the Häthigumpbā inscription and that the claim of descent from the ancient Nanda family is not unknown in Indian epigraphy, I do not consider it impossible that the Nandodbhavas of Orissa claimed descent from the Nandas of Pataliputra. Whether their claim was genuine or fabrioated is of course a different matter. It is also difficult to determine what relation these Nandas may have had with king Nanda-Prabhañjavarman of the Chicacole grant.*
An interesting passage in the description of king Vilásatunga-Dévānandadēva II found in this record as well as in the Baripada Museum plate is sitadhātumaya-godha-sikharikrita-lohitalöchanambara-dhvaja. This is also applied to king Dhruvananda in the Talmul plate. It shows that the banner of the Nanda kings was a piece of cloth with the emblem of lohita-lochana having an alligator (gödha) above, which was made of sitadhātu. The expression lõkita-lôchana may indicate a species of snakes; but it is possible to interpret it as "two eyes made of copper". The expression sitadhātu usually means 'chalk '; but it can be so interpreted as to suggest that the alligator on the banner of the Nanda kings was made of silver.
The inscription records the grant of a village made by king Viläsatunga-Dövänanda II in favour of a Brāhmaṇa. The name of the village is given as Palāmūnā. It was situated in the vishaya of Kahäsringa within the mandala of Airavatta. The donee was the Brahmana Kuladēvapāla Bhatta son of Dévapāla and grandson of Samarapala Bhatta. He is said to have belonged to the Uluka götra and the Paryārisi pravara. The word paryārisi seems to be a mistake for pañch-arsheya, referring to the five pravaras attached to the götra. It should, however, be pointed out that the Götra-pravara-nibandhakadamba recognises only three prtvaras for the Uluka götra (viz., Udala, Dēvarāta and Viśvāmitra). The douce or rather his family is further said to have originally hailed from Rādhā and was living at a place whose name ended with the word pura. This place may have been situated in the dominions of the Nandas; but Rādhā was the name both of a country and of its capital about the present Burdwan District of West Bengal. So the donee was a Rādhiya Brāhmaṇa settled in Orissa.
1 Tho li symbol in the date of the Talmul plate may actually indicate 100 instead of 200 ns in the Orissa Museum Plate of Dandimahadevi to be edited by me in this journal.
* Select Inscriptions, Vol. I, pp. 208-13, 489-90. . Successors of the Satavahanas, pp. 216, 226.
Ibid., p. 77 and n. Bombay ed., p. 114.
