Epigraphia Indica Vol 28

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 32

No. 1)
NAGARDHAN PLATES OF SVAMIRAJA
of the Multäi platos starts in verse, but after the first verse thore is a sudden break. A sentence in prose follows, but the concluding portion of it, tasyadimavän-almajah is again the fragment of a verse. These reasons are not quite convincing; for similar mixture of prose and verse is noticed in several genuine ancient grants. They, however, led Dr. Altekar to regard the date of the Multai plates as suspicious. I also adopted this view in my article on the Rashtrakūtas of Mänapura and taking the date A.C. 631 of the Tivarakhōd plates as genuine, I suggested that Govindaraja mentioned in the plates as the grandfather of Nannaraja flourished in oiroa A.C. 690-610 and was thus probably identical with Govinda who, as mentioned in the Aiholo inscription, invaded the territory north of the Bhimarathi at the time of Pulakësin II's accession. I suggested further that the great Cbālukya Emperor Pulakekin II placed Govindaraja's successor Svāmikarāja in charge of Berar when he conquered it from the Kalachuri Buddharāja. These conclusions will now have to be revised in the light of the information derived from the present plates.
A close examination of the two aforementioned Rashtrakūta grants has convinced me that the Tivarakhēd plates are spurious. My reasons are as follows-(i) The text of the Tivarakhad plates is very corrupt. The mixture of fragments of prose and verse appears in it in a more flagrant manner than in the Multāi plates. (ü) The inscription purports to record two grants in favour of the same Brāhmana Mundibhatta, -one made by the Rashtraküt'a Nannarāja on Maha-Kärttiki (full-moon tithi of Kärttika), and the other by Sankaragana of an unspecified lineage, on the occasion of a solar eclipse. There is, however, no mention of Sankaragana in the genealogical portion of the grant. Besides, there was no Sarkaragana ruling in Berar in Saka 563 (A.C. 631-92) when the plates purport to have been issued. There was, again, no solar eclipse before Kårttika in Saka 553. There were, however, two in the previous year Saka 562-one in Srāvana and the other in Mägha. It is stated at the end that the gift was recorded when eight months of the Saka year 663 had expired. We shall therefore have to suppose that the grant, made on the occasion of the solar eclipse in Māgha in Saka 562, remained unrecorded for nearly nine months. No reasoni stated for this unusual delay. (iii) The date of the plates is recorded in decimal figures as 563. As I have shown elsewhere, the decimal notation came to be used in Maharashtra in the last quarter of the eighth century A.D., the earliest genuine instance of it, so far known, being the Dhūlia grant of the Rashtrakūta prince Karkarāja, dated Saka 701 (A.C. 779-80). The Tivarakhod plates which purport to belong to the second quarter of the seventh century A.C. could not thereforo have been dated in decimal figures.
The Tivarakhod plates thus appear to be spurious. This conclusion is coroborated by the recent discovery, in the Akola District of Berar, of another set of plates issued by the same Rashtrakūta Nannaraja.. These plates, in their formal portion, closely agree with the Multāi plates. They are dated in Saka 616 (A.C. 693-94). This date plainly shows that the Multāi plates are genuine ; for there is a difference of only 16 years between the dates of the two grants made by the same king Nannarāja, which is not unusual. 1 A. B. O. R. I., Vol. XXV, P. 47.
Saswagančna in 1. 9 of tho Tivarskhod plates is evidently a mistako for Sankaragančna. For a similar mistake noe Bhavattavarmmd for Bhavadattavarmma in l.% of the Rithapur plates, above, Vol. XIX, p. 102.
The only Sankaragana who is known to have flourished in this period belonged to the Kalachuri dynasty. He however closed his reign in o. A. C. 600. Two grants of his subor Buddharija, datod K. 860 and K. 861 (A. 0. 610) have boon discovered. See above, Vol. XII, PP. 80 f, and VI, pp. 204 f.
4 The year is specified in words in toxt lines 16-16, and the corresponding numorala ooour, ono below the other, on the left-hand margin of the plate, at the ocmmoncement of toxt lines 12-14. The figures rocording the data are not after additiona's supposed by Hiralal. The form of the figure 8 is as in the Swinged plates of Dantidurga. Ind. Ant., Vol. XI, pp. 108 ff.
Journal of Ganganath Jha Research Institute, Vol. I, pp. 891 . • Those plates were discovered in a villago doar Akola. It No. 59 of the copper-plato ineoription, Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy for 1949-50.