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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA No. 34─ MUDHOL PLATES OF PUGAVARMAN (1 Plate) P. B. DESAI, DHARWAR In May 1949, this set of copper-plates was received for examination in the office of the Government Epigraphist for India from Shri R. S. Panchamukhi, the then Director of Kannada Research, Dharwar. The plates were originally in the possession of a shepherd belonging to a village in the present Mudhol Taluk of the Bijapur District. They were handed over to Shri V. C. Garwad, District Judge at Mudhol, who passed them on to Shri Panchamukhi in 1943. Shri Panchamukhi has edited the inscription on the plates in his Progress of Kannada Research in Bombay Province, 1941-46, pp. 12 and 69 ff. and plate IV. The epigraph is briefly noticed in the Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy for 1949-50, p. 2 and registered as No. 7 of Appendix A.[1] I edit the record here with the king permission of the Government Epigraphist for India. The set comprises two copper-plates held together by a circular ring with seal. The rims of the plates are not raised. The first plate is engraved on the inner side only, while the second on both the sides. The plates measure each 5¾″ in length, 21/16″ in breadth and 1/16″ in thickness. The ring which is 2¼″ in diameter passes through a circular hole, ⅜″ in diameter. The ends of the ring are soldered into the bottom of a thick oval seal having a rim. The seal which measures ⅞″ by ¾″ contains in the sunken surface a standing human figure with its right hand raised.[2] The ring and the seal together weigh 9 tolas and the whole set weighs 25 tolas.
The epigraph is on the whole in a fair state of preservation, although a few letters in lines 1, 7 and 8 are damaged. It contains 12 lines of writing, which are distributed evenly on the three inscribed faces of the plates. Line 8 continues about half the distance, the remaining space being left blank probably due to its narrowness. No punctuation markers are used anywhere in the writing. Some letters are omitted through oversight while engraving, as in lines 1, 6 and 11. The writing contains a few other scribal errors. The characters belong to the southern class of alphabet with archaic traits, having in a majority of instances small hollow boxheads. They may be compared for general resemblance with some records of the early Kadamba family.[3] The initial vowels u and ai are met with in lines 10 and 7 respectively. Medial i and ī are not distinguished, both represented by a circle at the top of the letter. Jihvāmūlīya occurs once in brahmaṇah=krama in line 2. ___________________________________________________
[1] The inscription has also been noticed by Dr. D C. Sircar in Prof. P. Sundaram Pillai Com. Vol., 1957,
pp. 96-97.
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