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202
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JULY, 1910.
honours' favoar to bay at the proper price from your honours cultivated lands with portions ;13 and, in order to augment the merit of my mother and father and mine own merit, bestow it on the virtuous brahman Somagvāmin, who is of the lineage of Kanva, is Vājasaneya and is a Lauhitya!8: therefore do ye deign in compliance with my intimation to sever off portion of land . .. . . . .. . . .. . ."
Wherefore we, giving heed to this very request, have-because there is a rule established regarding things transacted in the eastern region, namely, that cultivated lands are sold at the rate of the sum of four dināras for the area which can be sown with a kulya of seed 16 - taken from this Vasu-gvāmin a couple of dināras for (so many] " kulya-sowing areas of waste land plus a pravartta 17- sowing area, and have according to the valle . . . .. .. . . . ............. and have determined by the record-keeper Janmabhūti's determination ..... ........ the compact portions of cultivated land belonging to the leading man Thoda 18 . . . . . . .. . ........ . and have yesterday (?) severed the lands off according to the standard measure of eight reeds in breadth and nine reeds in length by the hand of trusty and upright Sivacandra .. .. . .. and have sold them to the brabman Vasudeva. He has bought them.
And the boundary-indications are here stated : on the east, the boundary of Saga's (1) copper-plate land; [on the south] the boundary marked by the old-standing pattukils and parkați20 trees; on the west the boundary marked by the bullock-cart track . .. . . ..... . . .... .......... and the ship's mast,91 on the north, the boundary of Garga-svāmin's copper-plate land.
And bere apply the verses of the Dharma-sastra. The grantor of land rejoices sixty thousand years in Svarga : may both he who annuls a grant and he who abets such an act dwell just so many years in hell. Whoever confiscates land that has been granted away by himself or granted away by another, he becoming a worm in a dog's ordare, rots along with his ancestors.
19 If Dr. Hoernle's reading ksettrakhandalakam bo taken, the meaning would be "an unbroken (or compat) area of onltivated land." This would agree with sambaditha, if that is the correct reading, in l. 17. The subs quent description of the land so far as it can be made out, hardly suggests one compaot blook, and certainly bews that the greater portion was waste land.
13 Launitya is derived from Lohita, and might mean either " & descendant of Lohita," or "one who dwella by the river Lohita (the Brahmaputra).” One group of Viávāmitra's descendants was named Lohitas or Lawhilas (Harivansa xxvii, 1465; xxxii, 1771 ; Brahma Parāņa x, 62), but he was not a Kāpya.
14 Vijñāpa; this is a new word, unless it is a mistake for vijiapana, 15 See General Remarks, p. 214 infra. 16 The words which aro illegible no doubt state sono number,
IT This is what the word appears to be ; but whatever it be, its meaning must be some measure smaller than ball a kalya, because the price for all the land, waste and cultivated, was only two dinaras. I cannot, however, find any word with a suitable meaning.
1. The only two readings which make any sense are Thoda-samladdha-kşetra and Thodara-moddh a-ksetra, and I have taken the former in the translation because it requires no new word; but the latter reading is well worth attention. Mridhā, or valgarly mirdhā, ir a title common in this region at the present time; it is applied to a zamindsr's head peon and is also a surname. It has no derivation that I know of, and is probably an old indigenous word; and if Sanskritized for such an occasion as this grant would naturally be written meddha. The meaning then would be the portions of oultivated land belongiog to the leading man Thodasa Mridha." This makes better sense, as the land doos not appear to have been oom paot, and I am inolined to thin true meaning of these words.
19 Patuka is a gourd, Trichosanthes diaca (Mon. Will. Dict.), and pat ka is a name of the betel nut palm ; and there are other plants or trees of similar names. A plant like the gourd would be a quite possible land mark, for I have found equally temporary things specified as boundary marks in old land measurement papers in this region; bat the epithet "old-standing" shows that some large tree is me
16 Parkati is the waved-leaf fig-tree, Ficus infectoria.
31 Nau-dandaka; or it may mean only boat'a pole ; but an old ship's maat is more likely to have been erected than a boat's pole. Dauda, or rather its vernacular form dā uhr, when used in connexion with a boat, generally means sa oar' now; but I think I have heard danda used also for a 'mast.'
