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No. 18] BHUBANESWAR INSCRIPTION OF PRAMADI; SAKA 1064 letters of the lower one, consisting of eight lines of writing in Gaudiya characters and covering an area of about 31 inches by 154 inches, are more or less obliterated, although a few lines of the record can be confidently deciphered. The preservation of the other inscription on this side is, however, fairly satisfactory, even though it suffers from a crack in the right half of the stone, which has damaged a letter or two in every line of writing in the epigraph. This inscription has been recently edited in the Orissa Historical Research Journal, Vol. I, No. 2 (July 1952), pp. 7-8. Unfortunately the published transcript of the epigraph is not free from errors and omissions. The editor of the record also admits that its latter part is unintelligible to him. Moreover he does not notice the interesting fact that the chief, whose donation is recorded in the inscription in question, is already known to the student of South Indian epigraphy from a number of other records. For these reasons, I re-edit the inscription in the following pages.
The inscription covers & space of about 321 inches in length and 12 inches in height. It contains seven lines of writing. The characters belong to the Gaudiya alphabet as prevalent in Orissa about the twelfth century A.D. The language is corrupt Sanskrit, although the record is couched in a poetical style of prose composition as noticed in a few other similar inscriptions from Orissa. It seems that the author, who was a poor Sanskritist, was eager to impart the idea that the record was composed by him in verse. Little calls for special notice in regard to the orthography of the epigraph. The date of the inscription, expressed in words in lines 1-2, is the 15th day of the dark half of the month of Karkataka (solar Srāvana) in the expired Saka year 1064 corresponding to 1142 A.D.
The object of the inscription is to record the gift of a perpetual lamp to the god Kēdārēsvara, described as the lord of the three worlds (tri-bhuvana-vibhu) by Rajan Pramadi who is stated to have been the anuja (younger brother) of king Anantavarman Chodaganga. Pramādi is also described as one who regarded Lord Kēdārēsvara to be the Supreme Being (bhagavach-chhriKēdārēsvar-aika-para). It is further stated that the inhabitants of the village of Nägagarbhi in the Paimdā vishaya (district), headed by the Pradhāni (headman) named Sanda, received five Mādhas of gold, apparently from the donor of the perpetual lamp, viz., Rājan Pramäời. The inscription then goes on to say that the villagers receiving the money had to pay interest at the rate of one 'quarter' per month (māsa-pädika-kalā), the amount payable by them monthly being five 'quarters' (pañcha-pāda) for the five gold Madhas. The word pāda meaning 'a quarter' may of course be taken here to indicate one quarter of a gold Mādha which is believed to have been a coin weighing forty Ratis that was prevalent in medieval Orissa. In that case the monthly interest for the five gold Madhas would be 13 gold Mädhas; that is to say, the interest was calculated at the rate of 25 per cent per month. But, although the rate of interest was very high in ancient and medieval India, the rate suggested by the above interpretation of the record appears to be quite abnormal especially in view of the fact that usually the interest on a permanent endowment (like the one referred to in our inscription) was considerably lower than the normal interest on a similar amount. According to a rule, when nothing was pledged as security the rate of monthly interest payable by the ancient Indian debtor of respectively the Brähmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sūdra communities was 2, 3, 4 and 5 per cent., while there is epigraphic evidence to show that the monthly
* Cf. above, pp. 22-23, 31-32, etc.
* Hunter explains the Pradhan tenure as prevalent in Orissa in the following words : " Pradhan is a Sanskrit word meaning chief or head-man. Besides the tenure-holders now known as Pradhāns, all the Mukaddams, except those created after the Muhammadan conquest of the Province, were originally Pradhāns, i.e., village-officials appointed by the villagers, with the approval of the ruling power, to represent them before Government and the superior revenue officers, and to collect for them and pay to the divisional officers the revenue assessed on their villages. I have explained above how from being mere officials they gradually developed into quasi-proprietors and were, under the British administration, moulded into a homogenous body of village proprietors" (4 Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. XIX, p. 116).
