________________
APRIL, 1891.]
LUCKNOW GRANT OF BALAVARMADEVA.
123
the original plaster, in which rice husks form a large portion, still adhere to the walls, with traces of paint.
The architectural features of these caves, from which their date must be determined, and their close proximity to the Nadsûr caves, lead me to the belief that they belong to the same date as the NAdsûr cares which with Bedsa and Bhaja, belong to a period a little prior to the Christian era.
LUCKNOW MUSEUM COPPER-PLATE GRANT OF THE MAHASAMANTA
BALAVARMADEVA.
BY PROFESSOR F. KIELHORN, C.I.E.; GÖTTINGEN. I edit this grant, which does not appear to have been publicly noticed before, from an excellent ink-impression, made and supplied to me by Mr. Fleet. The original plate is in the Lucknow Museum, but no information is available as to where it was found, or by whom it was presented.
The 'plate is inscribed on one side only. It measures about 13" broad by 8" high, not including a projection, about 14" broad by 21" high and with a square hole in it, on the proper right side of the plate. In a few places the writing has suffered slightly from corrosion; but, on the whole, the preservation of the plate is good, so that, with the exception of two aksharas of not much importance, in line 9, the actual reading of the text is not at all doubtful. - The size of toe letters is between is' and f". - The characters belong to the northern class of alphabets. Of essentially the same type as those of the Kaņaswa inscription of 'Sivagaña, published ante, Vol. XIX. p. 57, they show a further development of the northern alphabet in the direction of the ordinary Nagari, and may thus be assigned to about the 9th or 10th century A.D. They include a form of the numerical symbol for 20, in line 12, and, in the same line, the ordinary decimal figure for 2. -The language is Sanskrit; and, excepting the benedictive and imprecatory verses in lines 13-15, the inscription is in prose. Iu respect of orthography, I have only to note that, except, as it would seem, in the words parama-brahmanyas and Balavarmmadevah, in line 3, and in brahman- , in line 4, b has been written by the sign for v, and that the rales of sandhi have been occasionally neglected, as will be shown in the notes on the text, below.
The inscription is one of the Mahasamanta Balavarmadova, who had assumed the pañchamahúsabda, and who meditated on the feet of the Mahasamanta Panduvarmadeva, the latter being represented as having attained the pancha-mahasabda through the favour of the god Varêśvarasvâmin, i.e. Siva (lines 1-3). From (his residence at) Brihadgriha (line 1), Balavarmadeva in lines 4-9) makes known to present and future royal families (rájakula) and to the people concerned, that, at the request of the village of merchants (which from the context I understand to be the village granted) headed by the tréshļhin Dammuka, he, for their and their parents' spiritual benefit, granted the village of Bhujangika on the (river) Vogananda to certain religious students, enumerated by name, who followed the Vâjasaneyi-Madhyandina and Kauthuma-Chchhandoga éákhds and belonged to the Gautama, Aupamanyava, Sandilya, and Vasishtha gôtras. And (in lines 10-11) he exhorts both the rulers and the inhabitants of the village to make over to the donees all customary dues and taxes. Line 12 contains the date -
the year 20, the 2nd of the bright half of Chaitra,' the year of which appears to be a regnal year; and gives the name of the dátaka, Kelhata, and of the writer, the Saruhivigrahika Adityadatta; and lines 13-15 contain three of the customary benedictive and imprecatory verses.
I have not met the names of the Mahasamantas Panduvarmadáva and Balavarmadova in any other record ; and, not knowing where the plate may have been found, I have not attempted to identify the places and the river, mentioned in this inscription. But I may
