Epigraphia Indica Vol 30

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

Page 86

No. 10]
EPIGRAPHIC NOTES
(Sandhivigrahika) Näñisimha out of their respective jägirs. In the Mehar inscription, the real donor of the grant, therefore, seems to have been the royal officer Gangadharadeva, the village of Mehāra in which the gift land was situated probably lying in his own jagir. Unless Gangadharadeva was intimately associated with the charter in this way, it is impossible to explain his introduction in the document. It seems also that on a previous occasion the village of Mehāra formed part of the jägirs of two other officers, viz., Mahāsāndhivigrahika Munidasa and Mahākshapatalika Dalaeva, who had created two rent-free holdings in the village with the king's sanction. These two grants are referred to in our record in lines 29-31 without any specification of the amounts of rent allotted to them to show that the king and the new owner of the jāgir (i.e., Gangadharadeva! recognised the rent-free nature of the holdings in question. It is of course difficult to say whether these free holdings were created during the reign of Damodara or one of his predecessors.
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Before taking up the grant portion of the Mehār plate for scrutiny, a word may also be said in regard to the reading of the fractions employed in this section of the record in enumerating the area of different pieces of the gift land given in the land measure called Drōna or Drōnavāpa and the amount of its income given in the coin called Purana. As in other medieval records of Eastern India such as the Vangiya Sahitya Parishad plate of Viśvarupasēna, is indicated by a vertical danda and by a danda slanting from upper right towards lower left. That is to say, one vertical danda-, two vertical dandas-(), and three vertical dandas- while one slanting danda to, two slanting dandas-() and three slanting dandas. In line 19, the area of the plot of land granted to the Brahmana Sankōka is given in a peculiar symbol which has been read by the learned editors as the numeral 7. But it has been overlooked that the total area of all the twentythree pieces of gift land is quoted in line 32 as 2 Drōpas + 2 Dropas, i.e., altogether 4 Drōņas only. This shows beyond doubt that the area of any one piece of the gift land cannot be 7 Drōņas. Moreover, what has been read as 7 has no resemblance with that figure as found in epigraphic records and manuscripts. On the other hand, it resembles very closely the modern Bengali form of() which was written in medieval inscriptions including the one under study with two slanting dandas of the type described above. The symbol may thus be regarded as the cursive form of (1). Another point deserving notice is that, although the editors have noted in their transcript (lines 20, 21, 23, 25, 26 and 29) seven cases of a cross being used after the slanting danda indicating }, in the enumeration of the area of a piece of the gift land, this has been altogether ignored in their interpretation of the inscription. What has, moreover, been read as a cross in line 26 is actually a cross with a dot on its left and another on its right. The real value of the cross and the cross flanked by dots cannot be determined in the present state of our knowledge; but it may be tentatively suggested that the former indicates and the latter(). It will be seen below that these readings appear to be supported by the total area of the gift land quoted in line 32 of the record.
Let us now quote the text of the grant portion of the Mehar inscription in lines 17-32.
17 uparilikhita-grāmā Sāvarṣṇya-aagōtra-path-kri-Kapaḍīkasya pañchavimhati-pa
18 rap-ōtpattika-griha-vāṭik-adi-ți 3 vya-bhū (1) sath-hi 25 [*] tatha Vrä(Brā)-4ri-Sänkōkasya pañcha-pura
1 See my papers on the Malanpara and Vanglya Sahitya Parishad plates, contributed to JAS, Letters.
* N. G. Majumdar, Inscriptions of Bengal, Vol. III, pp. 140 ff.
If such was the case, it may be conjectured that, according to this system, was written by a cross having four dots at the four sides-left, right, upper and lower.
* The editors read Sava[ranya apparently because they took the clear sign of superscript r to stand for a top matra, although in the Gaudiya alphabet the letter is written without top matra.
The editors read 2 bya-bhi.