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No. 36] KHONAMUKH PLATES OF DHARMAPALA OF PRAGJYOTISHA! 205 who died as a Ywarāja leaving behind his son Indrapāla. Indrapāla's son was Gopāla. The latter's son was Harashapäla. From him and his queen Ratna was born Dharmapala.
Besides carrying the genealogy of the Pāla kings of Assam three generations further from Indrapala, the inscriptions of Dharmapāla throw no new light on the history of Prägjyotisha. These grants, like those of Indra päla and Ratnapāla, are not dated in any era. Chronologically, the Pālas of Assam followed the line of Prälambha which again was preceded by that of Salastambha' flourishing perhaps immediately after Bhāskaravarman. Brahmapāla, the first of the Pāla rulers in Assam, was chosen, we are told in his son Ratnapala's Bargaon grant, as king by the people to continue the line of Naraka, on Tyāgasimha (the last king of Sālastambha's family) dying issueless." On palaeographical grounds, Hoernle was inclined to place Ratnapāla's grants in circa 1010-1050 A.D. Brahmapāla, then, it appears, ruled somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1000 A.D. Regarding Dharmapāla's period of rule, it may be stated that he flourished three generations later than Indrapāla whose Gauhati plates have been assigned to o. 1060 A.D. on palaeographical reasons. Thus Dharmapāla reigned somewhere in the first half of the 12th century A.D. and this is supported by the palaeography of his inscriptions.
The object of the inscription is to record a grant made by king Dharmapäls of some land in Mērupāțaka, producing six thousand measures of paddy.' Mērupātaka was a plot of land carved out of a bigger area called Digalandi belonging to the district of Puruji. The donee was Bhatta Mahābāhu, son of Vishnu and grandson of Ummāka who was a Brāhmaṇa of the Kāśyapa götra and follower of the Kāņva säkhā of the Yajurvēda and hailed from Madhyadēša.
It may be stated here that only a portion of Mērupātaka yielding six thousand measures of paddy was given by this grant to Bhafta Mahābāhu. Another portion of it yielding the same quantity of paddy was already in the possession of Mahābāhu. As it is stated in line 45 of the inscription, this portion lay on the east of what was conveyed to him by the present grant.
Regarding the localities mentioned in the inscription, the name Prăgjyotisha is applied here to a city, as also in some other records of Assam. The city stood somewhere near the modern town of Gauhati. The other localities could not be identified.
TEXT
First Plate [Metres : vv. 1-13 Vasantatilaka ; v. 14 Mālini ; v. 15 Aryā; vv. 16, 17, 19, 20 and 22 Anushtubh ;
v. 18 Sārdülavikridita ; v. 21 irregular.) 1 S[v]asti | Vandē tam=Arddhay[u]vatīśvaram=ādidēvam=indivar-oraga-phaņā-mani-karņņa
pūra[m]*(ram) (uttu)1 There are two copper-plato grants of Indrapāla's reign, namely, the Gauhati plates (JASB, Vol. XLVI, 1897, pp. 113 ff., and Kamarüpasdsandvall, pp. 116 ff.) and the Guäkuchi grant (Kamarüpasasanavali, pp. 130 ff.).
No inscriptions of Gopāla and Harshapala, the grandfather and father respectively of Dharmapala, have yet been found.
[But see above, Vol. XXIX, p. 149.-Ed.] • JASB, Vol. LXVII, 1898, p. 108.
Ibid., 1898, p. 102. • Loo. cit.
In line 30 of the inscription the piece of land in question is described as dvi-sahasr-otpattika, i.e. producing only two thousand measures of paddy. But this is apparently a scribal mistake for shat-sahasr-otpattika, for in line 43 of the record, the land granted to the donee is expressly called dhanya-shaf-sahasr-olpattila bhūmi.
It is mentioned also in the Pushpabhadra grant of Dharmapala, line 46. See Kamarupadasanavui, p. 177.
From impressions. Minor errors in the published transcript of the inscription have not been noted in all cases.
* In the place of kararapira(ru), Padmanātha Bhattaobārya reads kantha-ba[ndhum) in the Subhankarapåtaka inscription (Kamarupadasandval, p. 160).
