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OCTOBER, 1902.]
NOTES ON INDIAN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.
393
NOTES ON INDIAN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.
BY J. F. FLEET, I.C.S. (RETD.), Ph.D., C.I.E.
A particular instance of the use of the word vastavya. TN my note on page 331 ff. above, on the use and bearing of the words vástavya and vinirgata 1 in ancient Indian charters, I have sought to make clear the point, among others, that a grantee's place of abode, and a village or other real estate granted to him, ought, at any rate in all ordinary circumstances, to be localisod within a reasonably short and oonvenient distance of each other. The matter is one of common sense. And the point, which has not always been recognised, ought to be borne in mind, both in the interpretation of the original records and in the identification of places mentioned in them. Tako, for instance, the Nausârî plates of A. D. 817 noticed under No. 11 on page 336 above, and fully dealt with on page 363 ff. above, and the Chokkhakuţi grant of A. D. 867 dealt with on page 254 f. above. In the ninth century A. D., in the absence of all the means of speedy communication available in the present day, the possession of villages in Gujarat could not be of the slightest practical use to an individual dwelling nearly five hundred miles away at Badami in the Bijapur district, and to a religious establishment located some six hundred miles away at Kampil in the Farukhåbåd district, in that part of India which antil recently was officially called the North-West Provinces, but has now been named the United Provinces of Agra and Oude. A comparison of texts, however, shews that, in the Nausâri record, Badami was mentioned as the place of abode of the grantee's father, not of the grantee himself. And the idertification of the village conveyed by the Chokkhakuţi grant, shews that the Kampilyatirtha of that record is, not the far distant Kampil in the Farukhabad district, bat the village Kaphleta' or Kapletha' next door to the village that was granted.
I know of only one case presenting anything by way of an exception to the rule which I have sought to make clear. It is only an apparent exception. And, thougb it may not be exactly the exception which proves the rule," still it is not far from being such. It came to my notice - I should add,- too late to receive attention in the note referred to above.
This instance is to be found in the Cambay plates of A. D. 930, which conveyed a village named Kêvanja, – Latadêsa - Khêța kamandal - antarggata - Kåvikamabasthâna - vi ni]rggataya ih=aiva Mânyakhêtê vastavyâya érimad-Valla ühaparêndradêva-på dapadm-öpajivine Matharasagðtra-VájiKanvassa vra]hmasch&]riņê Mahadevayya-sutâya (Naga)mâryâya, 2—"to Nagamarya, who has come from the great place of Kåvikâ 3 which is situated in the Khêtaka mandala in the Lata désa, who dwells here, indeed, at Mânyakheta, who is a servant of the glorious Vallabbanarendradêva-(Govinda IV.), who belongs to the Mathara gofra and is a student of the Vaji-Kanva (school), and who is a son of Mahîdêvayya."
This passage does not present any of the stereotyped formule which we have in the instances Nos. 1, 2, and 5 to 11, on page 332 ff. above. Its phraseology resembles the looser
1 I overlooked, till recently, the point that the Postal Direotury of the Bombay Circle (1879) presents this Dame as Kapletha. This seems more likely to be correct than the 'Kaphlotal of the Indian Atlas and Trigon metrical Survey sheets.
. p. Ind. Vol. VII. p. 40, line 50 ff.
• The editor has translated mahästhana by "holy place." Professor Kielhorn's literas translation of the word by "great place," -- for instance, sriman-mahasthanan Kolanura, "of the sacred great place of Kolanor;" fuo Ep. Ind. Vol. VI. p. 54, line 71, and p. 88,- is better.
• Lit. "who subeists (like a bee) on the water-lilies which are the feet of," ato. The term tat-padapcdmAnduin w customary toohnical expression for the connection between foudatory princes and nobles, and offloials, and their paramount sovereigns and other superiors; see my Gupta Inucrs. p. 98, Doto 4.
