Indian Antiquary Vol 32

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 61

BRUARI, 1903.) NOTES ON INDIAN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.
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village are contiguous with those of Bagamre, and probably were originally part of the lands of Bagumrå. Its village-site is about one mike north-west-by-west from the village site of Bagamra. And its name would furnish to the person who fabricated this record, a convenient means for distinguishing the ancient Umbara, before the time when it acquired the prefis bag, from the various other places of the same name.
The places mentioned in the spurious IIAD platos whioh purport to have been
issued in A. D. 405, This record is No. 24 in the List of Spurious Records given by me in Vol. XXX. above, p. 214 ff. It was first edited, as a genuine record, by Dr. R. G, Bhandarkar, in the Jour. BJ. Br. R. 48. Soc. Vol. X. p. 19 ff. And my own treatment of it has been given in Vol. XIII. above, p. 115 ff., with a lithograph. Dr. Bhandarkar's remarks shew that the original plates were found at, or in the vicinity of, nhac in the Broach district of Gujarat, Bombay Presidency.33 This place is shewu in the Indian Atlas sheet No. 23, N. E. (1894), as • Elao,' on the north bank of the river Kim, about seventeen miles south-west from Ankleshwar, the head-quarters of the Ankleshwar tâluka of the Broach district. And the record really does belong to that neighbourhood.
The record purports, like the spurious Umêtê and Bag umrå platos, to have been issued, vijaya-vikshepát Bharukachchha-pradvára-nasakát (read vasakat), " from the victorious cantonment situated before the gates of Bharukachohha," that is, of Broach. And it claims that, on * specified day in the month Y&shtha (meaning Jyêshtha or Jyaishtha), Saka-Saóvat 417 (expired), falling in June, A. D. 495, the Gurjara prince Dadds II. granted to Brâhmag, for the maintenance of the bali, charu, vaivadeva, agnikótra, panchamahdyajna, and other (unspeeified) rites, & village (gráma), the name of which is to be read as Raivam, lying (anta patin) in & territorial division called the Akulesvara vishaye. The name of this village was engraved over some other name, of which two syllables, vari, can be seen in the original plate under the first two syllables of the extant name; and there are some marks in the lithograph, which suggest that the name of the vishaya, also, may have been engraved over something else. The extant name of the village was read by Dr. Bhandarkar as Rachhchbavam ; and by me as either Raidbar or Raivan, with a preference for Raidha. That it should be taken as Raiva“, was subsequently shewn by Dr. Bühler.4
The alleged grantee is described as the Bhatta Narayana (for Narayaqa), son of the Bhatta Govinda,36 His alleged father is described, in a passage which was partially engraved over a cancelled passage, as dwelling (vastavya) at Abhichchhatra, and as being a member of the community of Chaturveins of that place, and as belonging to the Kasyapa gôtra, and as being a student of the Bahvpicha (school of the Rigveda). The name Abhiohchhatra, thus presented, is, no doubt, a mistake for the Ahichohhattra of various other epigraphic records and of Sanskrit literature. Tradition or legend presents more than one place named Abichchhattra; for instance, the Bhairanmatti inscription, put together in the period A. D. 1069 to 1076, speaks of an Ahichchhattra on an island of the river Siodha, that is, the Indus. But there can be little doubt, if any, that
13 In his opening remarks, Dr. Bhandarkar denoribed the record as having been found "in a village in the Surat Collectorate ;" see Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. X. p. 19. . But his rabeequent remarks, on page 24, specify "Elao" as the place in the vicinity of which the copper plate was found," and make it quito olear that the villago moant is Ilho in the Broach distriot. * See Vol. XIII. above, p. 117, note 8.
See pago 58 below. # The construction of the page speoifying the alleged grantes and his father, is similar to that need in the corresponding passage in the spurions Umēta plates, which has been quoted in Vol. XXXI. above, p. 337.
Ep. Ind. Vol. III. Pp. 231, 236. I do not remember, now, whenoo I obtained the meaning of region' for the word kurwa, in line 19 of the text. The Bor. Dr. Kittel's Kannads-Englsh Dictionary gives that word the meaning of an island. - For some other references to one or more places named Alichohhattis, see my Dynasties of the Kanarose Dietricts (in the Gas, Bo. Pres. Vol. I. Part II.), p. 560 and moto 11, and p. 51. An emigrant from Ahiobohhattra is mentioned in the Ujjain plates of A. D. 994 or 975; no Vol. VI. above, p. 68. A territorial division onlled the Ahichohhetted bluki so mentioned in the Bapakhera plate of Haraha vardhana: 106 Ep. Ind. Vol. IV. p. 210.