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No. 19-NESARIKA GRANT OF GOVINDA III, SAKA 727
(2 Plates) PARMESHWARI LAL GUPTA, BOMBAY
(Received on 30. 6. 1959)
This set of three copper plates was lying for a long time with the family of Major Sardar Nagojirao Patankar of Patan, North Satara District, Bombay. The source from which they came to his family is unknown. On the 15th May 1955. Major Patankar presented the plates to Shri Morarji Desai, the then Chief Minister of Bombay State. Later they were tansferred to the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, Bombay. The inscription was published earlier by Shri G. H. Khare in his Sources of the Medieval History of Deccan (Marathi), Vol. I, pp. 15 ff. with Plates..
Each of the three plates measures 9.5" in length and 6-75' in breadth. Their ends are a little raised and thickened for the protection of the writing, the preservation of which is unsatisfactory. Some portions at one corner of two of the plates are lost. The surface of the first and second plates are damaged due to corrosion. The second plate is cracked at the centre. The first plate is inscribed on the inner side and the other two on both the sides. The plates are strung on & ring about -5' in thickness and 2-3' in diameter, to which is soldered & round seal 1.5' in diameter. The countersunk surface of the seal bears the figure of Garuda, facing, squatting on a lotus.
The whole grant runs into 74 lines. Plate I has 19 lines, Plate II has 19 and 16, and Plate III 15 and 5. The scribe has inadvertently omitted one or two letters at places and in one case (line 42) as many as nine letters. There seems to be some overwriting in lines 49 and 50, the motive of which is unknown.
The characters are Någari of the West Indian type and resemble those of the other copper-plate grants of the Rashtrakūta ruler Govinda III who also issued the present charter. The sign for the jihvāmüliya and upadhmāniya resembles the letter sh (cf. lines 9, 27). The letter b is always denoted by the sign for u. The language is Sanskrit. As regards orthography, we have the indiscriminate use of one of the three sibilants for another, the use of y for j and vice versa, ri expressed by ri, etc. There are numerous errors in the text of the record.
The plates were issued by the Rashtrakața king Govinda III while he was encamping in Sagüdůru.' He is described as Paramabhattāraka Mahārājādhirāja Paramēśvara brimat-Prabhūtavarsha Srivallabhanarēndra and as meditating on the feet of Paramabhatāraka Mahārājādhiraja Paramégvara frimad-Dhärävarsha. The object of the inscription is to record the royal gift of the village of Nēsarika on the occasion of Sankranti on the 13th day of the dark half of the month of Pausha in the cyclic year Tarapa and the expired Saka year 727 (expressed in words only). The date corresponds to the 21st December 805 A.D. On that day, the Samkrānti took place 55 ghatikās after mean sun rise when the 13th tithi of the dark half of Paushe was current. The tithi ended 42 ghatikās after mean sun-rise next day. The oyclic year was Tārana according to the Northern system.
The donated village Nösarika was situated in the Chandagada vishaya. The details of the boundary given in the grant are difficult to understand, as the lines containing the information are tampered by overwriting. However, it appears that it was bounded on the east by the confluence of the river Tară; on the south by Hēma-girl adjoining some village (the name of which cannot be made out); on the west by a water-fall of the village of Darvvapa, and on the north by a
[See below, p. 132, note 1.-K.] *[See below, p. 132, note 4.-Ed.)
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