________________
174
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
(VOL. XXIX 2 [adha?]vapa 80 [1*] Mahsā]kulapati-ayya- Agisamēnam(na) Pāni[dēja vadidam padichhidam [l*] 3......... (adhivāsa(si)ka Bhada?] Apavasa [Mahāsa]ra Ghali Adasama' [l]"
TRANSLATION May there be success! In the regnal year 8 of the illustrious Mahārāja Gaņa. By Mūlajapa are given 3 idols (and also) 80 [adha?]vūpas (of land). The apportionment (i.e., the land apportioned) at Pānida is accepted by the venerable Agisama (Agnisarman), the Mahākulapati. Bhada (Bhadra), Apavasa (Apavarsha?), Mahāsara (Mahāsāra?), Ghali (and) Adasama (Ataśarman), residents of....
No. 24-HINGNI BERDI PLATES OF RASHTRAKUTA VIBHURAJA ; YEAR 3
(1 Plate)
MORESHWAR G. DIKSHIT, SAUGAR This copper plate grant is from the collection of the Bhārata Itihāsa Samshodhaka Mandala, Poona, where it has been deposited for the last 27 years. It is reported to have been found in the possession of a Brahmin at Hingại Berdi, & small village on the bank of the Bhimā river, near Dhond in the Poona District. It was obtained by Sri P. R. Alegaonkar who passed it on to Prof. Datto Waman Potdar for the purpose of decipherment and publication. At the request of the latter, Mr. P. M. Chandorkar read a short note based on this record before the Sixth Annual Session of the B. I. S. Mandala in 1926.6 As the reading given by him is not altogether satisfactory, I reedit the plates here with the kind permission of the secretaries of the said institute.
The set consists of two sheets of copper, each measuring about 5 inches in length and 24 inches in breadth. The weight of the two plates is 14 tolas. In the upper margin of each plate there is a small roundish hole, about 2/10 inch in diameter through which a copper ring is passed for holding them together. The two ends of the ring are secured under a lump of copper which is flattened and bears on it the incised figures of an akshamālā, consisting of eleven beads, a kamandalu-shaped spouted' vessel on its left and a danda on its right, apparently the requisites of a sannyāsin. The ring weighs 1} tolas. The inscription on the plates consists of 22 lines of writing, of which 9 are engraved on the second side of the first plate, 10 lines on the first side of the second plate and the remaining 3 on the second side of the latter. As the rims of both the plates are raised, the engraving has remained in a fair state of preservation.
The characters are of the nail-headed variety of the southern alphabet current in the fifth and sixth centuries A. C. The record is very carelessly engraved and exhibits certain peculiarities which deserve close attention. We see mostly nail-headed or acute-angled letters in the first plate, while the second plate shows small circles or pin-heads on the top of certain letters. These
1 The reading may possibly also be ayya-Agisamēna; but I am inclined to ignore the traces about the tail of a in both the cases.
What I have read as di may possibly also be 3 or ja , although that would hardly give any sense. • The first letter in this name may possibly be also read as a. Full-stop in the case seems to be indicated by a slanting line. .
. Shashtha Sammēlana Vritta (B. I. S. Mandala), pp. 63-65. •What has been described as danda represents possibly only a blade of kuda grass according to Mr. M, Venkaaramayya. Ed.]