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No. 41-MALGA PLATES OF SAMANTA INDRARAJA
(1 Plate) : D. C. SIRCAR AND S. SANKARANARAYANAN, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 18.7.1958)
About the middle of the year 1957, Pandit L. P. Pandeya of Raigarh, Madhya Pradesh, informed the Government Epigraphist for India of the existence of a copper plate inscription lying in the possession of Shri Badri Prasad Rai of Dhoba har in the Bilaspur District of the same State. Under his instructions, Shri Rai was good enough to send the inscription on loan to the Government Epigraphist for India in July 1957, and it was soon returned to him after examination. The owner of the plates was stated to be Thakur Ratansingbji of Malgā, P. O. Kotma, District Shahdel, Madhya Pradesh.
The inscription is written on a set of three plates which measure about 94 inches by 4 inches each and are strung on a ring measuring about 2 inches in diameter and about 7 incb in thickness: The ring passes through a hole about the iniddle of the upper side of the plates. The first plate has writing only on the inner side while the other two plates are inscribed on both the sides. The record contains 30 lines of writing, 7 lines each on the inner sides of plates I and III and the obverse and reverse of plate II, and only 2 lines on the outer side of plate III. The rectangular seal soldered to the joint of the ring contains only the legend fri-Indrarajah (correctly dr-Indrarājah) in embossed characters. The three plates together with the ring and seal weigh 119 tolas.
The characters belong to a variety of the Siddhamātrikā alphabet and are assignable to a date roughly between the Bodhgaya inscription" (c. 589 A. D.) of Mahānaman and the Aphsad inscription. (c. 670 A. D.) of Adityasēna, that is to say, about the Arst half of the seventh century. The letters are, however, more angular in shape and their top is formed by a hollow triangle of a bigger size than the solid triangle at the top of the letters of the Bodhgaya and Aphsad epigraphs. Letters with a hollow triangle forming the top are sometimes met with in early inscriptions, e.g., in the recently discovered Mallar (Bilaspur District, Madhya Pradesh) plates of Vyāghrarāja, written in Southern characters assignable to the 6th century A. D.
Among initial vowels, a occurs in line 29; a with length indicated by a curve in lines 1 and 8 and by an angular sign in lines 13, 16, 21 and 24; i in lines 6, 8, 26 and 28 ; u in line 28 and 29; and è in line 29. The medial signs of a anda (cf. also medial 6) are sometimes a birð-mātrā and sometimes a prishtha-mätra. Medial u is written with a downward vertical stroke (cf. "tphulla in line 2), or a curve attached to the lower end of the letter (cf. tunga in line 3). The sign has been written differently in ru in gunair-u in line 1 and chāru in line 2. Medial û is indicated by & downward curve added to the left of the vertical stroke of a medial u (cf. mürtti in line 4), or a curved stroke added to the rignt side of the u sign (cf.or-bhütva in line 16). The sign for medial a in bhūgna in line 23 is of a different type. The subscripts ch and v are not clearly distinguished (cf. svasti in line 1 and of-charu in line 4). The letter m'is written with a straight stroke or a globular mark added to the lower left corner of p (cf. frimäo and mati in iine 6). The form of subscript y is angular and the top of the letter is flat. In the ligature ry (cf. paryanta in lines 5 and 13),
* OIT, Vol. III, pp. 274 f., and Plato.
Ibid., pp. 200 f. and Plate. • No. 6 of 1958-59, App. A. Cf. also above, Vol. XVI, Plato faoing p. 16.
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