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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
(VOL. XXVIII
mounds in the south-east part of the village, on one of which there is a big banyan tree. The urn containing the plates was discovered just at the foot of this tree. The plates were suspended by means of an iron rod inserted across the deliberately broken rim of the urn and are in a good state of preservation. The urn itself is of red earthenware and has a wide circular mouth. It had & hemispherical lid. The copper plates were preserved inside the urn in paddy-husk. This method of preserving copper-plate grants is known from some other cases as well. There were, in all, four sets of copper plates. Each set consists of three plates held together by means of a thick ring, the two ends of which are securely soldered under a seal bearing the lāñchhana of the respective royal donor.
The earliest of the four records is edited here. Each of its three plates measure 6%" x 2 XYt". Its copper ring is circular, 4" in diameter, and seal elliptical (3}" x 2"). The legend on it is badly worn out, though four lines of writing are traceable. The writing is enclosed within straight lines of which there are four running across the breadth of the oval surface. Above the legend, at the top, are figured a dot and a crescent which stand respectively for a star (or sun) and the moon.
The plates do not have raised rims, but still the writing on them is in a fair state of preservation. The first side of the first plate alone is left blank. The ring had to be cut by me for taking impressions. The plates together with the ring weigh 102 tolas, the ring alone weighing 67 tolas.
The script of the inscription is Brahmi of the southern type and bears close resemblance to the archaic characters adopted in the grants of the kings of Kalinga of the 5th and 6th centuries. Attention may be drawn to the peculiar type of the serif of the letters which is indicated by a dot or dots as the case may be. In this feature it closely resembles the script of the Rāgõlu plates of Saktivarman. The language is Sanskrit and except for the two benedictory verses quoted from Manu and Vyāsa, at the end (lines 14-17), the inscription is in prose. The final m is smaller in size and is often engraved below the line ; e.g., karttavyam in line 12; consonants are doubled in conjunction with a superscript r as in varmma in line 5, etc. Except for one or two mistakes of the engraver, the inscription reads all right. The numerical symbols for 10, 5 and 4 are given in the date portion of the grant. The name of the lunar month and the day are also given. Of the two place-names given in the inscription-Vijayapura and Andõreppa,' the latter appears to be the ancient name of Andhavaram, the findspot of the inscription. I am not able to identify the other place, Vijayapura.
The inscription belongs to the king Mahārāja Ananta-Śaktivarman of the Māthara family (line 5) and is issued from Vijayapura, where the king was camping with his army (hasty-aseaskandhāvarāt). It records the donation made by the king of the village of Andõreppa converted into an agrahāra, free of all taxes, to the very brāhmana families belonging to various götras and charanas to whom, earlier, the village had been granted by Aryyaka-Śaktibhattarāka-pada who had conquered the celestial beings by the incessant practice of Dharma as ordained.
1 A photograph of the urn with the four sets of plates suspended from the rod in their original position was published in some of the English dailier, announcing the discovery. See, for instance, the Mail and the Hindu (both of Madras), respectively, of the 11th and the 14th April 1951.
. For instance, see above, Vol. XXVII, p. 268 and n. 2.
• Ragðlu plates of Saktivarman, above, Vol. XII, pages 1 ff. and plate; Brihat proshtha grant of Umavar. man, above, Vol. XII, pp. 4 ff. and plate; J. A. H. R. S., Vol. VI, p. 53; Sakuņaka grant of Ananta-Saktivarnan, C. P. No. 21 of 1934-35. Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra, Government Epigrophist for India, was kind enough to send me 8 not of estampages of this last mentioned inscription, the facsimitos of which havo not yet been published, for purposes of comparison, for which I am highly obliged to bim.
• Abuve, XII, p. 2. Cr. Kindeppa of the Singavarapukāts plates of Anuatavarman (above, Vol. XXIII, p. 57).
