________________
No. 37--PANDIAPATHAR PLATES OF BHIMASENA, YEAR 89
(1 Plate) D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 5.11.1959)
Pandit 8. N. Rajaguru published this inscription in the Orissa Historical Research Journal, Vol. VI, Parts II-III (July and October 1957), pp. 97-102 and Plates. He is stated to have received the plates for study from Pandit Ananta Tripathi of Berhampore in the Ganjam District of Orissa and the record is reported to have been discovered at the village of Pandiapathar about six miles to the north-east of Aska in the same District. As Pandit Rajaguru's treatment of the inscription did not appear to be quite satisfactory, I was eager to examine the original plates which I received from Pandit Tripathi in October 1959 for study and return. It was indeed the kind help of Dr. H. K. Mahtab, Chief Minister of Orissa, that enabled me to secure the inscription for examination and I am extremely thankful to him.
The inscription is written on three plates, of which the first and third are engraved on the inner side and the second on both the sides. There are twentyeight lines of writing, each inscribed face of the plates containing seven lines. The plates measure each about 7% inches in length and 34 inches in height. There is a hole (a little below inch in diameter) about the middle of the left half of the three plates and the seal ring (about 1 inch in thickness and 3 inches in diameter) holding the plates together passes through it. The said hole has been made at the space left out on each plate at the time of engraving. Before this hole was bored, another hole was bored through mistake elsewhere in each of the three plates after the engraving had been completed. Thus there is a hole in the lower part of the third plate (cutting off an akshara in line 27) while a hole each was bored! originally at the corresponding place in the first and second plates (affecting two aksharas in line 7 on Plate I and one akshara in line 9 and two in lines 20-21 on Plate II) although, in the case of Plates I and II, the circular pieces of metal removed by the boring instrument were replaced and soldered soon after the mistake had been detected. The piece of metal similarly removed from: the third plate was evidently refixed at its place; but it is now lost though the marks of soldering are quite clear. The circular seal soldered to the joint of the ring is 14 inches in diameter and is much corroded. Its counter-sunk surface bears the sun and crescent symbols above an animal which looks like a boar to right. There is another symbol looking like & oonch-shell above the head of the animal. The weight of the three plates together is 567 tolas and that of the real and the ring 134 tolas.
The characters of the inscription belong to the East Indian alphabet of about the tenth century A.D. and may be compared with those of such other contemporary epigraphs of the Ganjam region as the Madras Museum platest of the time of Narēndradhavala, which have been assigned to the third quarter of the same century. However, on a careful examination of the palaeography of the record under study with that of the said Madras Museum plates, it is found that letters like e, kh. i. d and th exhibit somewhat more developed forms in the latter epigraph. Thus our record may be assigned on palaeographical grounds to the first half of the tenth century and this, as will be seen below, is supported by the date quoted in the inscription.
1 Above, Vol. XX VIII, pp. 44 ff. and Plate.
(283)
