Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

namely Śaka 631. Consequently the date Śaka 553 of the Tiwarkhēḍ plates appears to be a mistake for some other date. It would therefore follow that Nannarāja ruled from Śaka 615 up to at least Śaka 631. The grant is published in Epigraphia Indica., Vol. XXIX, pp. 109 ff.

  Nos. 57 and 58 secured from the Karandai Tamil Sangam at Karuntaṭṭāṅguḍi near Tanjore are a unique discovery of the year both for their size and bulk as well as for their historical importance. They consist of 57 plates each measuring 16∙5” by 9∙2” and two massive rings about 1” thick and bearing circular seals of the Chōḷa emperor Rājēndra-Chōḷa I. One of the rings is broken on both sides of the seal and the other which is complete was already cut when the plates were secured for examination. Of the 57 plates, 55 seem to form one complete set while the remaining two represent all that is left of the other. The plates are reported to have been unearthed in a field in the village of Puttūr about a mile from the Ammapet railway station in the District of Tanjore. According to the owner of the land, Mr. Sevu Pandiyan, they were found sixty or seventy years ago and had since been in the possession of his family. The Karandai Tamil Sangam having learnt about the existence of these plates, secured them through the good offices of Mr. S. A. Sambasivam, the Firka Development Officer of Tanjore. The 55 plates forming a set weigh without the ring, 8645 tolas or 216 pounds and 2 ounces, nearly 700 tolas or 16 pounds more than the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates, also of Rājēndra-Chōḷa I, which, weighing together with the ring only 7980 tolas or 199½ pounds, were hitherto considered to be the heaviest of copper-plate characters.

   The 55 plates of the complete set are in three groups or sections ; the first comprising the first three plates recounts the king’s genealogy in Sanskrit verses written in Grantha and records the gift of the village Tribhuvanamahādēvī-agrahāra to Brāhmaṇas by the king in the 8th year of his reign. The last verse and a closing sentence of this section mention the names Nārāyaṇa, the poet and Tribhuvanamahādēvī-Mahāchārya and Rājēndrasiṁha-Pērāchārya, the composer and the engravers respectively of the grant. The second section comprising the next 22 plates which are numbered independently of the first three, contain the details of the lands included in the gift village here referred to as Tribhuvanamahādēvī-chaturvēdimaṅgalam. This part is written in Tamil and the king, referred to here by his title Kōnērinmaikoṇḍān, is introduced by his well-known praśasti commencing with Tirumannivaḷara, etc., after which the details connected with the gift village are given. This section cites the 8th year and the 107th day of the king’s reign. The third section of 30 plates which are also numbered independently of the previous two sections forms the third and the final section of the document and contains the list of the names of the donees. The 55 plates comprising the three sections thus form but one document which, in its general get-up, resembles the other copper-plates charters of the Tamil country, particularly the Leiden grant and the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates.

   The remaining two of the 57 plates are obviously stray leaves. One of them is numbered 21 and the other 22 and they contain a portion of a list of the donees in Tamil. It may therefore be presumed that there was another equally bulky copper-plate charter of which we have only the two leaves and a seal available, the rest of the document having now been lost. Both the seals are massive and circular, about 5” across in diameter and depict in high relief the Chōḷa emblems on a countersunk surface. A Sanskrit verse in Anushṭubh is embossed in Grantha characters circumscribing the emblems. The verse, identical in both the seals, states that the grants are of Parakēsarivarman Rājēndra-Chōḷa (I). The present grant is the second copper-plate charter of Rājēndra-Chōḷa I, his first being the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates already referred to. While the latter is dated in the 6th regnal year of the king, the present one is two years later and belongs to the 8th year of his reign.

   Reverting to the Sanskrit section of the record, it describes the genealogy of the Chōḷa family up to Rājendra-Chōḷa I as in the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates, but remarkably enough, the verses are all different though the composer of both the grants was one and the same person namely Nārāyaṇa, son of Śaṅkara. However, it may be seen that some of the verses of the present grant are the same as those found in the Leiden plates of Rājarāja I, father of Rājēndra I, which, it may be observed, were composed by Anantanārāyaṇa of Kōṭṭaiyūr. The part.