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No. 39) MADRAS MUSEUM PLATES OF ANANTASAKTIVARMAN; YEAR 28
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same time that the erased writing does not appear to have been of a more archaic variety than the present inscription."
I edit the record here with the kind permission of Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra, Government Epigraphist for India.
The characters of the inscription belong to the southern class of alphabets. Some of them are written in a cursive style. The majority of the characters employed in the record, barring those in cursive style, can roughly be placed in the 5th century A. C. for the reason that while they appear more developed than those found in the Rāgõlu plates of Saktivarman of the 4th century A.C., they are more or less of the same period of development as those of the Brihatproshthā grant and the Dhavalapēta plates of Kalingādhipati Umavarman which are of the 5th century A.C. They also closely resemble the alphabet of the Bobbili and the Kōmarti plates of Kalingādhipati Chandavarman. All these charters have been placed approximately in the 4th-5th century A.C Those letters in our grant which are cursive, such as I, n, kri, jñā, jā, su and pu, show somewhat developed forms. This, in my opinion, may be due to the very cursive style of the writing. The occurrence of both early and later forms of the same letters in one and the same record or in charters of one and the same king is not unusual, the best explanation for it being the tendency to cursive writing which the scribes developed. It should be remarked, however, that the way in which the letters l, n and kri of our inscription are written is for the first time met with among the early Kalinga grants in the Jirjingi plates of Indravarman" and the Godavari copper-plate grant of Prithivimüla," both of which are placed in the sixth century A.C. The presence of such forms in our grant assignable to a date about half a century earlier need not be considered as anything irregular. Attention should be drawn, however, to the dissimilarity that exists in respect of the letterst and n between the script of our record and that of the newly discovered Andhavaram plates of Anantajaktivarmar12 who, as shown in the sequel, appears to bo identical with the ruler who issued the present plates. Whereas in the Andhavaram platest is angular (being two-pronged) and is looped, in the present plates they are formed in the reverse way, 6 being looped and without such a loop but having a curve at the left as found in the Siripuram plates of Anantavarman13 of the 6th century A.C. This difference may not be considered as irregular in our grant since the looped and the unlooped n occur in grants of the 5th century A.C., for example, in the Sāsanakõța plates of Western Ganga Madhavavarman" and in the Sālankāyana grants generally. Further, the looped t, as found in our grant, and the unlooped t as in the Andhavaram plates occur in one
1 ARSIE, 1934-5, part II, item 3. * Above, Vol. XII, pp. I ff. and plate; Vol. XXV, p. 239.
Ibid., pp. 4 ff. and plate. Ibid., Vol. XXVI, p. 133 and plate. . Ibid., Vol. XXVII, pp. 33 ff. and plate. .Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 142 and plate.
* Some of them are formed peculiarly; the medial a is attached to jū and jña at the topmost prong of the consonant j which is unusual, since this vowel mark is waually attached to its middle prong.
• Ahadanakaram Plates of E. Chalukya Vishnuvardhana (V), Ind. Ant., Vol. XIII, p. 186 and plate.
• The Kesaribēda and the Rithapur plates issued by the same king Arthapati Bhattāraks and drafted by one and the same individual, however, differ in their characters indicating the former to be rather earlier. See above, Vol. XXVIII, p. 12.
10 Above, Vol. XXV, p. 281 and plate. 11 JBBRAS, Vol. XVI, pp. 114 ff. and plate. 11 C. P. No. 4 of 1951-52. Above, p. 177. u Above, Vol. XXIV, plate facing p. 51.
Ibid., plate facing p. 238. ** Pedavēgi plates of Nandivarman II, JAHRS, Vol. 1, plate facing p. 94 ; above, Vol. XXV, plato facing p. 46.
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