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No. 28-NAPITAVATAKA GRANT OF GANGA DEVENDRAVARMAN
(1 Plate)
G. S. GAI, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 13.11.1958)
This copper-plate grant was secured by the Government Epigraphist for India in 1939-40 from the Pontiff of the Shri Balaga Bāvāji Matha at Srikakulam in the Visakhapatnam District through the Sub-Collector of Srikakulam. The inscription was published by Shri M. Somasekhara Sarma in the Telugu Journal Bharati, Vol. XIV, Part ii (July 1937), pp. 67 ff. According to Shri Sarma's information, the plates were discovered in a mound situated to the west of Chidivalasa which is a village about 14 miles north of Srikakulam. Another grant, issued in the Ganga year 397 by the Ganga king Devendravarman who is also the donor of the present grant, was discovered at the same village.
This is a set of three copper-plates each measuring 7.75" by 2.6". They are strung together on a ring (about 36" in thickness and 4" in diameter), the ends of which are soldered to the two ends of a bracket forming the lower portion of a circular seal about 1.5" in diameter. The seal has the legend fri-Devendravarma with the symbol of the crescent above and a seated bull facing left below. Below the bull is a lotus. The weight of the set is not known.
The characters are an admixture of both the Northern and Southern scripts, known as the later Kalinga script and found in many other records of the period and region. On palaeographical grounds, the inscription may be referred to the 9th or 10th century A.D. There are very faint traces of some letters of a previous writing on the first plate and the second side of the second plate. The language is Sanskrit and contains many errors. Very often medial ä has not been indicated. Except the usual benedictory and imprecatory verses at the end, the text of the record is in prose.
The charter, issued by Mahäräjädhiraja Paramesvara Devendravarman of the Ganga dynasty, is not dated. The king was the son of Bhupendravarman and was devoted to the god Gokarnasvamin on the Mahendra-giri. The grant was issued, like other records of the early Eastern Gangas, from the city of Kalinganagara which has been identified with Mukhalingam near Srikakulam. The introductory portion giving the prasasti of the king and comprising lines 1-12 of the text is the same as that of the Chidivalasa plates of Devendravarman referred to above (lines 1-12). In both the records as well as in the Nirakarpur plates, the ruling king Devendravarman is called the son of Bhupendravarman who is apparently identical with Bhupendravarman whose son Anantavarman Vajrahasta issued the Kalahandi plates dated in the Ganga year 383. (877-81 A.D.). So Devendravarman of our record was a brother of this Anantavarman Vajrahasta and, since the Chidivalasa plates are dated in the Ganga year 397, he was possibly the younger
1 See ARSIE, 1939-40, App. A, No. 16.
2 JAS, Letters, Vol. XVIII, pp. 77 ff.
Ibid., pp. 47 ff, and Plates.
JBRS, Vol. XXXV pp. 1 ff.
* Above, Vol. XXXI, pp. 317 ff.
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