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OCTOBER, 1889.)
TERRA-COTTA SEAL FROM BULANDSHAHR.
289
AN ANCIENT TERRA-COTTA SEAL FROM BULANDSHAHR.
BY F. S. GROWSE, M.A., C.I.E., B.C.S.; FATEHGARH.
THE curious torra-cotta seal, of which a full-size print is here given from a wax impression.
1 was found about eight years ago at Bulandshahr, the capital of the District of that name, in the North-West Provinces. The site was a piece of high broken ground immediately to the west of the modern town. This was popularly known as the Moti Chauk' or Moti Bazar,' meaning, of course, not that it had ever been a pearl-market,' in the literal sense of the words, but that it was once the principal bâzâr of the place; in the same way as the beautiful mosque in the Agra Fort is called the .Môti Masjid.' The spot is now occupied by the new Town Hall and Municipal Garden, the latter - in order to preserve the old tradition - being styled the Môtî Bagh.'
The seal was turned up accidentally in levelling the ground, and was only a few inches below the surface. Thongh probably some fourteen hundred years old, the lettering is perfectly fresh and clear, and the rudely moulded ring that forms the back of the seal, still shows the texture of the workman's fingers who had handled the moist clay. It was inside a closed earthen jar, which accounts for its excellent preservation. It is oval in shape, with a dotted rim, and is divided into two equal compartments by a pair of parallel lines across the centrs In the upper portion are two devices, one of which is a conch-shell; the other, which is raised on a little stand, looks like a wing. Mr. Fleet was inclined to take it for a nautilus; but it seems difficult to understand how such an emblem could be used so far inland. I myself had at first thought that it might be intended to represent the chakwd or Brahmaņi duck, so frequently introduced in old Hindu painting and sculpture. In the lower compartment is the owner's name, in characters of about the 5th century A.D. Though the letters are so clear, they are somewhat abnormally shaped, and there has been considerable difference of opinion as to how they should be read. My first proposal was Sattila, which Gen. Cunningham corrected to 'Mattils,' and this has been finally endorsed by Mr. Fleet, who thinks the person in question may possibly be identified with the king Matila, of the Allahâbâd pillar inscription, where the omission of the second t may have been a mistake. Dr. Hoernle had suggested Hattiya ;' and Mr. Pincott, 'Hattipa.'
In spite of its modern Muhammadan designation, which is more correctly restricted to the Fort, the town of Bulandshahr, which stands on an eminence overlooking the river Kalindi, is of prehistoric antiquity. It was originally called Baran (the Sanskrit varana), and the name still survives as the title of the Pargana. Bactrian and Gupta gold coins have frequently been found, which attest its existence 88 & place of some wealth in those early days; and at the time of the invasion of India by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017 A.D., Har-datt, the Raja of Baran, though nominally a feudatory of Kananj, was virtually the independent sovereign of all the country now included in the districts of Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Mêrath and Dehli, with parts of Murad Abåd, Mathuri, and Etâ. He was a por Rajput, and, according to a copper-plate grant of one of his successors dated in the year 1076 A.D., he was the seventh of his line who had ruled at Baran. The Dors,—now almost extinct,-claim to be a branch of the great Pramar clan.
