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No. 29.-ADHABHARA PLATES OF MAHA-NANNARAJA
(1 Plate)
BAL CHANDRA JAIN, RAIPUR Adhabhāra (Adbhär or Arbhār), about 40 miles from Bilaspur, is a village in the Sakti Tahu of the Bilaspur District of Madhya Pradesh. On the 5th of August 1954, when a cultivator named Bodhram Bhatku Teli was digging earth in his Khasra No. 747 of that village, he found the present plates buried in the field. They were deposited in the sub-treasury at Sakti where they remained for several months. They were later acquired by the Deputy Commissioner of Bilaspur and presented to the Central Museum, Nagpur.
The set consists of three plates, the first and third of which are inscribed on one side and the second on both the sides. Each plate measures 8" in length, 4-95' in breadth and about 1" in-thickness. The second plate is somewbat thicker than the others. About 1' from the middle of the proper right edge of each plate, there is a round hole (6' in diameter) for the seal-ring to pass through. This seal-ring is now lost. The weight of the three plates together is 1164 tolas.
There are 27 lines in the inscription : IB-8, IIA-8, IIB-7, IIIA-4. The lower portion of the last plate is blank and the record incomplete. The letters, which are neatly and deeply engraved, are each about 1' in size. The characters are of the box-headed variety and very olosely resemble those of records like the Rajim and Baloda plates of Tivaradēva. The length of medial i is denoted by a dot in the circle which denotes its short form. Medial au 8 tripartito and the subscript resembles in many places the sign of the vowel ri (see bri in lines 1, 7 and 9). The final form of m oocurs in line 24. Punctuation is denoted by a vertical line with its top bent towards the left and followed by another vertical line.
The language is Sanskrit and, with the exception of the benedictory and imprecatory verses at the end, the whole record is in prose. Its language differs from the formal portions of the grants of Tivaradēva and Mahā-Sivagupta Bālārjuna. The inscription is aomewhat carelessly written. The writer has used in many places medial i for medial i. Anusvāra and tisarga havo often been unnecessarily used whilo amusvära, visarga and the final consonants are omitted in many cases. As regards orthography, & consonant preceding and following is doubled in some cases. The letter b is sometimes used for v (see abhibriddhi in line 15 and prativastabya in lino 20). Anusvāra is wrongly changed to i before a sibilant in vanta (line 5) and to n before . in nibansā in line 22 while n is used for p in punya in line 15. The letter d is omitted in uditya in line 21 and etadvaya in line 23.
The object of the inscription is to record the grant of a village named Kontiņika, situated in the vishaya or district of Ashtadvära, to a Bhāgavala Brāhmaṇa named Nārāyan-õpādhyāya who belonged to the Kauņdinya göra and the Mädhyandina - sākhā, by the illustrious MahāNannarāja, son of Mahāśiva-Tivararāja. The king, who was born in the lunar dynasty and was an ardent worshipper of Vishnu, made the grant for the merit of himself and his parents. The plates were issued from Sripura and the gift was made on the 12th day of the dark half of the month of Bhadrapada, on the occasion of the sankranti.
1 For the antiquities of this place, se Bilaspur District Gaseler, p. 256; Hiralal, Inscriptions in the 0. P. and Berar, 1932, No. 230. *CII, Vol. III pp. 205 ff.; abovu, Vol. VIT, pp. 108 ff.
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