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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY:
[JONE, 1886.
the young prince managed to bag one of these by putting him in the way of killing large huge creatures almost every day, and the sale game they started him fairly in life as a of their hides and tasks realised large sums of merchant in ivory and skins, and thus saved money.
him from the privations he would otherwise In this way the thieves succeeded in baffling have suffered by being doomed to live on small the destiny of the boy in one respect, because I game only.
MUDYANUR PLATES OF SAKA 261 OF THE BANA KING MALLADEVA-NANDIVARMAN.
BY LEWIS RICE, C.I.E., M.R.A.S. This grant consists of five copper-plates, 87 | Bali, the lord of the Dänavas, was descended inches by 25, strung on a metal ring, uncut, a promoter of his race, the king Nandiwhich is secured by a metal seal, 14 inches in varman. His son, Vijayaditya-Deva, diameter, bearing in relief the image of the ball next succeeded to the kingdom, and in turn recumbent, Nandi, with the sun and moon was followed by his own son, a glory to above. The outer side of the first plate the B&D & race, Sri Vad hûvalla bbaand both sides of the last plate are blank; Malla de va-Nandivarman, the donor of but there are traces of an inscription on the the grant. He is described as the roler over a former, which has been effaced. From so much seven and a half lakh country containing twelve as appears, it is evidently the beginning of thousand villages, situated in the Andhra Ganga inscription, containing the usual phrases, mandala or Telaga country. One of the ascripas in the Hosûr and Någamangala plates, tions in his praise, being a complimentary referdown to Harivarman. The plates belong to a ence to Buddha, strikes me as most unusual in resident of Mod yanûr (the Mudiyanür of a Brahman grant. It says of the king (line 15) line 28) in the Mulbågal Taluka of the Kolar that "in compassion for all living things in the District in Maisar, and were found a few years three worlds he was like Bodhisattva," going ago in the court-yard of his house by some on to compare him in other qualities with boys who were digging about in play.
Virabhadra, Mahêndra, and Kårttikêya. It proves to be the charter of a gift of At the end, the carpenter (tvashtri) Nandithe village of Mudiyanür or in its Sanskrit form varmichåryya states, in the first person, that he Ch û dågrama, to twenty-five Brahmans, inscribes the grant by order of Vadhávallabhamade by the Båņa king Vadhiyallabhs
Malla. The king, calling himself VadhûMallad & ve-Nandivarman, in the Saka vallabha-bhpati, also in the first person, conyear 261 (A.D. 339-40), the twenty-third of his firms the grant as long as the sun and moon Own reign, while he was staying at Åvani. endure. The Sarvapradhana, or general The langaage is Sanskrit throughout, very full minister, the Dandadhipa Vaivasvata, then of mistakes: the characters are Pârvada-Hale- records that he has carried out the order. Kannada. There is a constant insertion, un- The inscription closes with the two words necessarily, of visarga before the initial p of a vyadhanam ullégan, the meaning of which is following word, a practice which seems pretty not apparent, though the latter seems to refer general in old inscriptions in this character. to the writing.
The opening lines are in praise of Siva. Of the professed date of this inscription, I Then follow praises of Vishga, with the view express no opinion. It is left to the judgment of introducing him in his connection with of those who feel able to pronounce upon it." Bali in the Vámana or dwarf incarnation; But as regards the other contents of the but some of the ascriptions are such as belong grant, we are not without information to guide only to Siva. From Mahabali or the great ns. From the inscriptions formerly published
It should not be overlooked that the Ganga grant etraced from the first plate comes down to Harivarman, whose reign is assigned to Saka 109 to 210.-[But see ante, Vol. VIII. p. 9121. And, having now seen the
present plates, I consider that this grant is certainly spurioms, at any rate so far as the date is concerned. The Characters are, roughly, of much the same type as those of the Merkers and Nagamangals plates.-J.FF.]
