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No. 26]
TWO GRANTS FROM DASPALLA
No. 26-TWO GRANTS FROM DASPALLA
(2 Plates)
D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
About the beginning of October 1952, I received for examination two copper-plate inscriptions from Mr. P. Acharya, Superintendent of Research and Museum, Government of Orissa, Bhubaneswar. I was informed that the inscriptions had been found in the old Daspalla State, now merged in Orissa as a sub-division of the Puri District, and that Mr. Satyanarayana Rajaguru, Assistant Curator of the Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneswar, had prepared a paper on them for publication in the Orissa Historical Research Journal. Mr. Acharya, however, was kind enough to permit me to edit both the inscriptions in the Epigraphia Indica. I am extremely thankful to him for this kindness.
183
A.-Daspalla Plate of Devananda; Year 184
This copper plate, as I learnt from Mr. Acharya, was found early in 1951 in the course of the re-excavation of an old tank in the village of Chikankhandi in the Jormu Pargana of Daspalla. The Pargana is situated on the right bank of the Mahanadi while the town of Daspalla lies on the left bank of the river. The plate was presented to the Orissa State Museum in June 1951 by Mr. Dasarathi Misra who is a teacher of the M. E. School at Jilinda in the Daspalla Sub-division.
The inscription is written on both sides of the single plate measuring 10"x7.45" x 13". A bronze seal, having the shape of an expanded lotus and measuring 3.25" in diameter, is soldered about the middle of the proper right end of the plate. It resembles the seal attached to the charters of the family to which the issuer of the grant under discussion belonged. The border of the pericarpial portion (about 2-24" in diameter) of this lotus-shaped seal is raised. In the hollow thus formed, the seal proper is countersunk. The central part of the space on the surface of the seal is occupied by the legend in one line: śrī-Dēvānandadēvasya, the subscript y in the last akshara being considerably lengthened towards the left so that the entire legend looks as doubly underlined. Above the legend is the figure of a couchant bull to proper right, with the emblems of a conch and a crescent above it. Below the legend there is the representation of an expanded lotus. The seal is fixed to the plate by means of two knobs running through holes made in the usual projection of the plate. These are covered by a lump of metal forming the back of the seal. Some eight or nine lines of writing about the middle of the plate on both its sides are shorter owing to the encroachment of the lower part of the seal. The plate together with the seal weighs 143 tolas.
In respect of palaeography, language and orthography, the present record closely resembles the published charters of the family to which its issuer belonged. In a few cases (cf. sarvada in line 11, sarva in line 23) the superscript r reminds us of a similar form of it in the inscriptions of the Pālas of Bengal and Bihar. The charter is dated in the year 100 80 4, i.e., 184 (the symbol for 100 resembling the akshara lu) of an unspecified era which appears to be identical with the reckoning used in the records of the imperial family of the Bhauma-Karas of Orissa as well as in those of some of their feudatories, This era is now often identified with the Harsha era of 606 A. C. and in that case the year 184 of our inscription would correspond to 792 A.C. But it has been noticed that the palaeography of the inscriptions dated in the era in question points to a considerably later epoch for it. As will be seen in our discussion on Satrubhañja's plates edited below, the beginning of this era now seems to be nearly two centuries later than that of the Harsha
1 See above, pp. 2 and 49.
6 DGA/53
