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No. 19--ASANKHALI PLATES OF NARASIMHA II, SAKA 1225
(5 Plates) D. C. SIROAR, OOTACAMUND
A set of inscribed oopper plates was discovered about the beginning of 1919 from the house of a Santal inhabitant of Pargana Asankhali in the Mayurbhanj State, now the District of that name in Orissa. The Santal is said to have found it several years earlier. U. N. Chakladar, & Tahsildar in the Mayurbhanj State Service, submitted the plates to Kamakhya Prasad Basu who was then the Sub-Divisional Officer of Mayurbhanj. The officer tried to decipher the insoription with the help of Nagendra Nath Vasu who was then serving as Honorary Archaeologist to the Mayurbhanj State, and actually prepared a short note on the record, although it was never published. I am grateful for the above information to Mr. P. Acharya who also supplied me with an extract from the unpublished article by Kamakhya Prasad Basu. The plates are now the property of the Museum at Baripada, chief city of the former Mayurbhanj State and headquarters of the present Mayurbhanj District. In 1941-42, the plates were received for examination at the office of the Government Epigraphist for India, Ootacamund, and several sets of their impressions were prepared by the office mechanic. I am editing the inscription from one set of these impressions.
In the manuscript note on the Asankhali plates by Kamakhya Prasad Basu, the set is described as follows: "Its weight is 15 seers. It has seven plates containing 14 pages, of which the 12 inside pages are inscribed. These seven plates are secured by a stout ring of copper which passes through the perforations of the plates at the top. The plates are each 14" x 9". The copper ring has a lotus attached to it, on which is found a seated bull. There are the mystic symbols of the trident, damaru and half moon on the lotus on both sides of the couchant bull." The impressions at our disposal show that the record was engraved on six plates. Of these the first and the sixth are insoribed on one side each, while the second, third, fourth and fifth plates have writing on both the sides. There are altogether 212 lines of writing on the plates. Of these the inner sides of the first and sixth plates contain 20 and 17 lines respectively. The first and the second sides of Plate II as well as the second side of Plate IV have 22 lines each, while the first side of Plate IV and the two sides of Plate V contain each 21 lines of inscription. The two sides of the third plate have no less than 23 lines each. Five of the insoribed plates are consecutively numbered. In the margin behind the ring-hole on the inner side of plate I is written gar 1. The second sides of the following four plates have similarly in the margin gar 2, gar 3, garn 4 and gar 6 respectively. The sixth plate, only the inner side of which is inscribed, oontains no such number. The letter gar seems to be a contraction of the name of the deity Gangēsvaradēva, the foremost amongst the recipients of the land granted by the charter under disoussion. The Kendupatna plates of Narasimha II, dated Saka 1217, are also similarly numbered ; but in their case the numbers are preceded by the letters kuma (only ku in one case) which seem to be a contraction of the official designation of Kumāra-mahāpātra Bhimadēvašarman donee of that charter.
The palaeographic and orthographic peculiarities of the inscription under disoussion are the same as those of the other published records of Narasimha II. They resemble very closely the characteristics of the palaeography and orthography of the Nagari copper-plate inscription of
1 Cf. Journ. As. Soc., Lotters, Vol. XVII, p. 34 and Plate IV.
OC. above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 186 ff.
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