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112 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXXIV There are altogether 42 lines of writing on the four inscribed faces of the three plates: 1-10 lines, IIA-11 lines, IIB-10 lines, and III-11 lines. The characters belong to the box-headed alphabet. The language is Sanskrit and the record is written in a mixture of prose and verse. There is one stanza in praise of king Tivaradēva at the beginning of the introductory part of the grant while the others are imprecatory and benedictory verses coming about the end of the record. ? As regards palaeography, language, orthography and style, the inscription closely resembles the published records of Tivara. As a matter of fact, the language is similar in all the three charters excepting the grant portion. The influence of the Southern Alphabet is noticed in the form of the letter d. Of initial vowels, we have a (lines 9, 19, 35, 36, 39, 42), i (lines 7, 31), u (lines 30, 31, 42), and ē (lines 29, 34). B has been used in some cases ; but sometimes the letter has been indicated by the sign for v. The two dots forming the lower limb of initial i have been omitted onde in line 7 possibly through oversight. Final m occurs in line 2 and final t in lines 38, 39 and 42. But final m has been wrongly changed to anusvāra in line 40. Both anusvāra and class nasals have been used. Anusvāra before & has sometimes been wrongly changed into the guttural nasal. The letter dh has been reduplicated before y and u respectively in the words upāddhyāya and addhvaryu (lines 23 ff.).
The date quoted about the end of the inscription in line 42 is the first day of the month of Mārgasirsha of the king's Afth regnal year. The Lodhiā plates' of Sivagupta of Kösala, who was a later member of Tivara's family, represent the full moon day of Kärttika as the 30th day of that month and this fact would show that, in the area in question, the months were regarded as Pūrnimänta. Thus the first day of Märgabírsha would be Märgadirsha-badi 1. The present inscription issued in the fifth regnal year is earlier than the Rājim and Balödä plates of the same king, belonging respectively to his seventh and ninth regnal years.
There is a controversy on the date of king Tivara. A. Ghosh assigns the king to the last quarter of the seventh century and V. V. Mirashi to the seventh decade of the sixth century.' Elsewhere we have assigned Tivara's reign to the latter half of the sixth century. But the problem cannot be solved finally without further light on the subject. Although the form of the letter y in the Arang plates of Bhimasēna, dated 601 A.D., is certainly earlier than that in the inscriptions of the Early Panduvargis (which we have been inclined to ascribe to dates about the middle and the latter half of the sixth century), the Bodhgayā inscription of Mahānaman, dated 588 A.D., shows the later form of the letter as found in the Panduvamsi records. The forms of the letters bh and do not appear to us as important as that of y. The ascription of Tivara's rule covering about & decade to the third quarter of the sixth century A.D. does not therefore appear to be palaeographically impossible.
Epigraphic evidence points to the existence of two kings named Tivara, the first being & contemporary of the Vishnukundin king Mädhavavarman I (c. 535-85 A.D.)' and the second, as will be seen below, ruling over a territory near the Vindhyas in the last quarter of the seventh century A.D. Thus there is some support for both the theories assigning our Tivara to the second half of the sixth century as well as to the corresponding part of the seventh century according as he is identified with the one or the other of the two Tivaras referred to above. It is interesting to note
1 Soe abovo, Vol. XXVII, p. 325. * Ibid., Vol. XXV, p. 269.
Ibid., Vol. XXVI, p. 229. • Soo The Classical Age, p. 220.
Abovo, Vol. XI, p. 342, Mirashi is certainly wrong in reading the date of the Arang plates as 601 A.D. instead of 601 A.D. (ibid., Vol. XXVI, p. 228).
• OII, Vol. II, pp. 274 ff., Plate XLI, A. * The Successors of the Salavahanas, pp. 128-30.
