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134
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAI, 1889.
protector of the three worlds, after having sacrificed to fire an oblation with abundant milk rice and sugar, - we have, in order to increase the merit and the fame of our parents and ourself, on Sunday, the thirteenth lunar day in the bright half of the month Bhadra, in the twelve-hundred-and-thirty-second year, in figures too, on Sunday, vu. di. 18 of Bhadra, in the year 1232, -on (the occasion of) giving a name to the king's son, the illustrious Harischandra, given the two) above-written villages with their water and dry land, with their mines of iron and salt, with their fisheries, with their ravines and saline wastes, with the treasure in their hills and forests, with and including their groves of madhúka and mango trees, enclosed gardens, bushes, grass and pasture land, with what is above and below, defined as to their foar abattals, up to their proper boundaries, to the Brahman, the mahápandita the illustrious Hrishikeśasarman, son of the mahamiérapanditase the illustrious Hald, son's son of the mahapandita the illustrious Mahidhara, of the Sarkaráksha gôtra, (and) whose five pravaras are Bhargava, Chyavana, Åpnavâna, Aurva, and Jåmadagnya, - (confirming our gift) with (the pouring out) from the palm of our hand (of) water purified with kusa grass..... (and) ordaining (that it shall be his) as long as moon and san (endure). Aware of this), you, being ready to obey (our) commands, will make over (to him) every kind of income, fixed and not fixed, the due share of the produce, the pravaņikara, and so forth.
(L. 29.) And on this (subject) there are the following) verses :-[Here follow eleven of the customary benedictive and imprecatory verses, which it is unnecessary to translate]
(L. 35.)- And this copper-plate grant has been written by the great keeper of records, the Thakkura, the illustrious Sripati.
F.-Bengal Asiatio Society's Copper-Plate Grant of Jayachchandra.
The (Vikrama) year 1298. The plates which hold this and the following five inscriptions (G.-K.) were found, in 1823, by a peasant at work in a field near the confluence of the river Varana (the Burnah' of the maps) with the Ganges, close to Benares; and they are now deposited in the Library of the Bengal Asiatic Society. Excepting some slight differences of orthography and occasional errors, the introductory portions of these six inscriptions, up to the words órimaj-Jayachchandradevo vijayi, are entirely the same as that of the inscription E, lines 1-20; and in the subsequent parts, too, the wording of these grants agrees so closely with the wording of E, that a full translation would be superfluous. I shall therefore, in the following, give only the essential portion of the text of each inscription, and shall point out what may be of any importance, in my introductory remarks.
This inscription is on a single plate, measuring abnut 20%" by 16", and inscribed on one side only. The edges of it were partly fashioned thicker than the inscribed surface, and were partly raised or beaten up into rims; and the preservation of the writing is perfect, so that there is no doubt whatever about the actual reading of any part of the inscription. The ringhole is in the upper part of the plate. The ring, which had been cut when the grant came ander Mr. Fleet's notice, is about thick and 5' in diameter. It fits easily into a round hole in the bottom part of a bell-shaped seal, which is about 3' high. The surface of the seal is circular, about 3}" in diameter; and on it, in relief on a slightly countersunk surface, there are - at the top, a representation of Garuda, with the body of a man and the head and wings of a bird, kneeling half to the front and half to the proper right, and with his head turned full round in profile to the proper right; across the centre, the legend érímaj-Jayachcham®]dradevah Il; and at the bottom, a sarkha-shell. - The average size of the letters is about ". The engraving is fairly good ; bat, in the usual manner, the interiors of most of the letters show marks of the working of the engraver's tool. The plate is thick and substantial; and
* This word appears to signify a great scholar, deserving of the honorifo title mitra (Hale-mitra). * On gokarna, see ib. p. 10, note 57.
41 See ib. p. 10, note 58. 1 See Ariatic Researches, Vol. XV. pp. 446 and 459.
