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No. 38–MODASA PLATE OF THE TIME OF PARAMARA BHOJA, V. S. 1067
(1 Plate) D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 12. 6. 1958) A set of photographs of the inscription published here was received from Pandit Purani Utsavalal of Mödāsā, the headquarters of a Taluk of that name in the Sabarkantha District in the Gujarat area of the Bombay State, through Dr. M. R. Mazumdar of Baroda. The locality was formerly in the Prantij Taluk of the Ahmedabad District. The Pandit's interest was aroused by the mention of the geographical names Möhadavāsaka and Sayanapata in the record since he could easily identify them respectively with the present Modāsā and the village of Sinvāda in the Mödāsā Taluk. Unfortunately the original plates were not available for examination in the office of the Government Epigraphist for India, though the inscription is decipherable from the set of photographs referred to above. Considering the welcome light the record throws on the history of the Paramāras of Malwa, it is edited in the following pages.
The inscription is stated to be incised on both sides of a single plate measuring about 9 inches in length and about 6 inches in height. There is a hole in its upper margin; but no ring or seal was available. There are in all 21 lines of writing in the inscription, 15 on the first side and 6 on the second. The preservation of the writing is satisfactory. The weight of the plate is not known.
The inscription is written in Nagari characters of about the eleventh century A. D. They are rather carelessly engraved and cannot be compared with the beautifully incised letters of the inscriptions of the Paramāras such as the Gāonri plates of Muñja, dated V. S. 1038 and 1043. They may, however, be compared with those of Bhoja's Betmā platesof V. S. 1076, the characters of which are not as beautiful as those of the Gaonri plates but are nevertheless much more carefully engraved than those of our epigraph. It may be remembered in this connection that the present charter is not an Imperial Paramāra record.
An interesting feature of the palaeography of our epigraph is the incomplete formation of the letter & (without its vertical right limb) in a large number of cases; cf. Sudi in line 2, vāsaka (for väsaka) in line 6, frutā° in line 7, Sayanao in lines 8 and 9, fut° (for suto) in lines 12 and 14, eto. Medial e has been written both as prishtha-mātrā and as firð-mātrā. In some cases, the siro-mātrā type of medial e has its top curved towards the right; cf. paramēsvara (for paramēsvara) in line 3, mandale in line 6, etc. See also the medial signs of ai and o in ih-aiva Valloo in line 7. B has been written by the sign for v. The letter jh, rarely found in early inscriptions, is once used in a personal name in line 15.
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit. There are many grammatical and orthographical errors in the text. The record is entirely written in prose, there being not even the usual imprecatory verses. Its orthography is characterised by a confusion between $ and 8 (cf. paramēsvara for paramējvara four times in lines 3-6 and futa for suta in lines 12, 14, 18 and 20) besides other errors of spelling. There are many cases of the redundant use of a danda, while sometimes it is placed quite close to a letter so as to look like an a-mātra.
1 See A. R. Ep., 1967-68. No. A 23. 8oo also H. G. Shastri's article on the epigraph in Bhar. Vid., Vol. V, 1945, Supplement, pp. 37-40.
* See above, Vol. XXIII, pp. 108 11., and Plates. Ibid., Vol. XVIII, pp. 320 ff., and Plates.
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