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No. 18 SIRPUR PLATES OF MAHASUDEVARAJA, YEAR 7
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(1 Plate)
8. L. KATARE, NAGPUR The charter consists of three plates, of which the first is damaged, nearly half of its right portion being broken off and lost. The plates were first noticed by Hiralal in the revised edition of his Inscriptions in the O. P. and Berar. They were then in the possession of Ramratanlal Agrawal, Talukdar of Sirpur, but seem to have been later on acquired by Pandit Lochan Prasad Pandeya of Balpur. The Pandit sent the inscription for examination to the office of the Government Epigraphist for India who noticed it in the Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy, 1946-46. It seems that, when the plates were with Ramratanlal Agrawal, they were taken out from their original ring bearing the seal of Mahāsudāvarāja and were misjoined to a seal which must have originally belonged to some charter of Mahājayarāja.. Each of the plates has in it a round hole (about half an inch in diameter) at a distanoe of about an inoh from its left edge. Each plate measures 5.6" x 3.2" ; and the three plates together weigh 46 tolas. The plates are smooth; their edges are neither thickened nor raised to give protection to the writing. Though a portion of the first plate is broken away and lost, the writing of the record is well preserved. The first plate is inscribed on one side only, while the second and the third are insoribed on both the sides. The third plate has only one line of writing on its second side. There are altogether 25 lines of writing. The average height of the letters, which are well-formed and carefully engraved, is about t".
The characters are of the box-headed variety of what Fleet calls the Central India alphabot', In which the charters of the Sarabhapura kings were engraved. It may be pointed out that the lotters on the plates of the Panduvame rulers, Tivaradeva and Mahisivagupta, partionlarly those on the Bårdüla", Lodhia' and Mallār plates, are angular and elongated in comparison with those on the records of the Sarabhapura kings. The top horizontal bar of the boz-head in the letters is also slightly projected on both the sides in the case of the former. The language of our inscription is Sanskrit and, ezzept the benedictory and the impreostory verses at the end, the composition is in prose. The upadhmaniya has been used in gopradah-paramabhāgavato in line 3 and dhiyah
· [The real damo of the king was Sudova. Mahasudevaraja is similar to Sudipamahardja.-Ed.) * Soo p. 106-A, No. 177(b).
• See p. 12, No. 62. [The text of thin insoription was published by Pandit Pandeys in Mahabovala Historical Society's Papers, Vol. II, 1987, pp. 42-43.-Ed.)
This conjectare of the sathor is not cary to provom we have several other instances of king's ohartor being endowed with the soal of his predonesnor. Soe J BOR8, Vol. XV, pp. 87 fl.; above, Vol. XXIX, p. 184 The name of Sadeva's predoonor ww really Jay. The logond (in two lines) on the soul reada :
Prasanna-tanayanyaddani vikkram-abhála-vidvisha[ Irimato Jayardjanya sanan ripu-idean[](nam ID -Ed.)
OII, Vol. II, pp. 18-19, 192, 196. . (Hin real name was Sivagupta. -Ed.)
Abovo, Vol. XXVII, Plate between pp. 290 and 201. • Ibid., Plate between Pp. 394 and 325. • Ibid., Vol. XXIII, Plato between Pp. 190 and 121.
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