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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXVII
B. Plate of Bhānudatta ; Regnal Year 5 The inscription is engraved on both sides of a single plate measuring 5.8 inches by 4.1 inches. There is a projection, with a hole in it, in the middle of the left end of the plate, to which a seal must have been originally fixed. The seal is now lost. There are eleven lines of writing on the ohVerse and eight lines on the reverse. The preservation of the writing is very poor as both sides of the plate have suffered considerably from the effect of corrosion. The plate weighs 43} tolas.
As regards palaeography, language and orthography, the inscription under discussion closely resembles the Soro (D) and Balasore? plates, as all the three charters were issued by the same ruler. Very little in these respects, therefore, calls for any special remark. The medial i is sometimes joined with the following mark of interpunctuation (cf. lines 13, 19) as in the Sumandala plate and some other inscriptions. The charter is dated in the fifth regnal year of a subordinate ruler named Bhănudatta who, as will be seen below, flourished sometime between 619 and 643 A.C. The actual date given is the 24th day of Aśva (i.e., Aśvayuj or Aśvina).
The charter was issued from a locality called Andhasubhiksha by the mahāpratihāra-mahārājamahāsāmanta sri-Bhānudatta whose feudatory position is further indicated by the epithet paramadaivata-sri-paramabhattāraka-pād-ānudhyāta. Bhānudatta's reverential declaration regarding the grant was addressed to the mahāsāmanta- mahārāja, rājaputtra, kumārāmātya, uparika, vishayapati, tad-āyuktaka, dandavāsika (i.e. dāndapāśika), sthānāntarika and other officers and also persons like the chāțas and bhatas, both of the time being and of the future, who were or would be associated (samupāgata) with the vishaya or district called Uttamālāka. The village, granted by Bhanudatta by the tāmra-patta for so long as the moon and sun endure and described as chira-khila-sūnya, was Kumvukirikshilāka in the said vishaya. The grant was made for the increase of the merits of the Sri-parama-bhattāraka-păda, i.e., the unnamed overlord of Bhānudatta. It was made theoretically in favour of the deity Manināga-bhattāraka of Chaikāmvakā or Ekāmvakā, but actually in that of the Brāhmaṇas who resided in the matha of the god and were students of the Maitrāyaniya school of the Yajurvēda. People are requested not to stand in the way of the donees enjoying the gift land, but to protect the grant owing to respect for the religious merit of Bhānudatta's overlord. The charter was written (i.e., its draft was prepared) by the sandhivigrahika Govinda. The plate was heated (for the purpose of fixing the seal) by the pēdāpāla Pratishthita. The designation pēdāpāla is found sometimes in the form pētakapāla and apparently means an officer who was incharge of the boxes containing documents like the one under notice. He was therefore associated with the records office and was possibly under the officer called pusta-pāla or pustaka-pāla in some inscriptions. Pēdāpāla Pratishthita of our record is apparently no other than the pēdāpāla Pratishthitachandra mentioned in the two other charters of the same ruler, referred to above. The plate was engraved by a person named Sivanandana.
All the three charters of Bhanudatta so far discovered are couched in similar language. Like the Balasoro plate, which, however, calls its issuer Bhānu instead of Bhānudatta, our record describes the ruler as a mahā pratihāra-mahārāja-mahāsāmanta, although the Soro plate (D) uses the designation mahāpratihāra-mahārāja. All the three charters are dated in the fifth regnal year of Bhānu or Bhānudatta and were heated by the pēdāpāla Pratishthita or Pratishthitachandra. They refer to the overlord of Bhānudatta without specifically mentioning his name. This seems to
Above, Vol. XXIII, p. 203. ? Abuse, Vol. XXVI pp. 239-40; 1.H.Q., Vol. XI, pp. 611 ff. • See above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 79 ff. • The name seems to have been spelt also as ending in ka.
In the records of the Bhauma-Karas, pusta-pala and pēdā-päla are often separately mentioned, the latter apparently as a small official.
