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No. 34-ALLAHABAD MUSEUM PLATE OF GOVINDACHANDRA, V. S. 1171
(1 Plate) D. 0. STRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 13.2.1968) When I visited the Municipal Museum at Allahabad in Deceinber 1957, Dr. S.C. Kala, Curator of the Museum, kindly allowed me to examine and copy two copper-plate grants in his custody. On examination it was found that both the charters belong to the Gähadavāla dynasty of Banatas. Both the inscriptions are engraved on single plates. The first of the two charters, written on both sides of the plate, was issued by the Gähadavāla king Madanapāla (circa 1100-14 A.D.) and the second, witten only on one side, by his son Govindachandra (circa 1114-55 A.D.).
Yadanapäla's document was issued on the occasion of the Akshaya-tritiya on Thursday, the 3rd of the bright half of Vaisakha in V. S. 1164, corresponding to the 16th April 1108 A.D. The seal attached to the ring passing through a hole in the plate has the figure of flying Garuda above, the legend fri-Madanapāladēvah in the middle and the representation of a conch-shell below. The charter records the grant of the village of Sājā in the Chaturāsikā (i.e., Chaurāsi or a Pargana consisting roughly of 84 villages)' of Manighapura in the A[ru]rēsa pattalā (district) in favour of the Brahmana Gangadharafarman of the Bhäradvāja götra. The name of apparently the same padala is also found in the Fyzabad plate of Gāhadavāla Jayachchandra (circa 1170-93 A.D.), dated V. S. 1233 (1187 A. D.), and it may be the same as the region around Arror, the older name of Partabgarh. The inscription was discovered at Badēra in the Kunda Tahsil of the Partabgarh Distriot, U.P. The gift village of Saja lies at a distance of seven miles from Bäderá which is only two miles from Manikpur (Mänighapura of the inscription) near the Ghutni railway station on the branch line between Allahabad and Raibareily. This inscription was published by K. C. Sinha and K. Chattopadhyaya in the Journal of the U. P. Historical Society, Vol. XIV, Part I, pp. 70 ff. The other charter issued by the Gahadevāla king Govindachandra is edited below. .
As indicated above, this is a single plate inscribed on one side only. The ring bearing the seal passes through a hole measuring 8' in diameter about the middle of the first line of writing.. The plate measures 17 inches in length, 13.5 inches in height and 15 inch in thickness. But the corners of the plate are rounded off and its length and breadth are slightly less at the sides. The soal bears, besides the usual Garuda and conch-shell emblems, the legend frimad-Govindachadra(ndra)dēva) . There are altogether 23 lines of writing on the plate. The findspot of the record is not known to me.
The inscription resenibles the numerous other charters of Gābadavāla Govindachandra in palaeography, orthography and style. The vowel mark of ē is written both as sird-mätra and prishtha-mātrā. E is written like p and mn like rll and dh sometimes like v. There is no difference between th and dhu. 'The use of v for b (except in Rambu in line 9), 8 for & and the class nasal for the anusvāra is noticed in many cases. The date of the grant is quoted as Monday, the fullmoon tithi of the month of Kārttika in V. S. 1171. We have another charter issued by the
This tithi was the occasion for the grant of several Gähadavāla charters. Cf. the Kamauli plate of V. S. 1172 (above, Vol. IV, pp. 103-04), Pali plate of V. S. 1189 (ibid., Vol. V. pp. 113-15), Lar plato of V. S. 1202 (ibid., Vol. VII, pp. 98-100), etc.
. * Soe JBRS, Vol. XL, p. 10. Cf. the name of Vada-chaturskiti-pattala in the Set-Mahot plate of Govindachandra, dated 1188 (above, Vol. XI, pp. 20 ff.). For the Prakritism in the expression chaturanika, cf. bayalist (Sanskrit drachatarishtal) in the name of Rudamaua bayālial-pattală in the Kamauli plate of V. 8. 1190 (above, Vol. IV, pp. 111-12).
Ind. Ant., Vol. XV. Pp. 10 ff. No facsimile of the inscription was published. The name has been road as Agurtia.
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