Epigraphia Indica Vol 29

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

Page 80

33
No. 5)
TWO SAILODBHAVA GRANTS FROM BANPUR We assembled in connection with the thirteenth session of the Indian History Congress. He then informed me that it was not possible for him, owing to his pre-occupations, to take up the editing of the inscriptions. He requested me to publish them. I take this opportunity of thanking him for his kindness shown to me in this connection.
The plates are now the property of the H.E. School at Bäppur which is a station on the BengalNagpur Railway in the south-western part of the Puri District of Orissa. Mr. Pāṇigrāhi received them on a temporary loan for examination from the Headmaster of the Banpur H. E. School. Nothing is known as to the circumstanoes that brought the plates into the possession of the above iastitution.
A. Grant of Ayasobhita II Madhyamarāja This inscription was published by Pandit Satyanarayana Räjaguru with plates in the Journal of the Kalinya Historical Research Society, Vol. II, part i, pp. 59 ff. But his treatment of the subject is rather perfunotory.
The set consists of three plates each measuring 6.6 inches by 39 inches. The plates are held together by a ring to which the seal is soldered. The ring was found out open when the set reached me. The seal oontains, in counter-sunk surface, the emblem of a couchant bull, facing proper right, and the legend bri-Madhyamarājadevah below it. The first and third plates are engraved only on the inner side, while the second bears writing on both the sides. The rims of the plates are raised in order to protect the writing. The first plate is damaged at the top right corner, and a few lines of writing are partly obliterated. The plates weigh 64 tolas, while the ring with the soal weighs 38 tolas.
The inscription is an incomplete charter of the Sailodbhava king Ayasobhita II Madhyamaraja who seems to have flourished about the second half of the seventh century A.C. (circa 665-85 A.C.). The writing on the reverse of the second plate ends with a verse describing the achievements of king Madhyamarāja. There is only half a line of writing on the obverse of the third plate, which was meant for introducing the customary list of officials and others belonging to Köngöda-mandala, to whom the royal order regarding the grant was intended to be addressed. These letters should have properly been preceded by a prose passage mentioning the king, desirous of making a grant, as kusali. It is possible to think that this mistake committed by the engraver was the reason why the set was abandoned, at least for the time being. It is well known that plates were often kept ready in the record offices of ancient Indian rulers with the introductory portion of the grant inscribed and a blank for the necessary grant portion to be inoised later as ooonsions arose.
In respect of palaeography, language and orthography, the inscription under discussion closely resembles the Parikud plates (issued in the 26th year of the king's reiga), the only other record of Sailodbhava Madhyamarāja so far known, and hardly anything calls for special mention. With the exception of the incomplete proge passage at the ond, just referred to, the siddham symbol, the word swasti and the reference to the place of issue, the entire poord is written in verse. There are altogether twenty verses, no less than eighteen of which are already known from the Parikud plates. The remaining two verses are also not new as they, like many others of both
1 The 13th regnal year of his father, who ruled at least up to his 50th year, fell sometime after 619 A.C. He himself ruled at least up to his 26th regnal year. See below.
Ct. the Ködärpur plate of Srichandra, above, Vol. XVII, pp. 188-92; Chittagong plate of Kantidēva, above, Vol. XXVI, pp. 313 ff., eto.
. Above, Vol. XI, pp. 284-7. The date given in words in line 45 must have been given in figures in line 64. Unfortunately the preservation of the writing in this part of the plate is unsatisfactory and the figures cannot be deciphered from the published faosimile.