The Indian Analyst
 

South Indian Inscriptions

 

 

Contents

Index

Introduction

Contents

List of Plates

Additions and Corrections

Images

Contents

Altekar, A. S

Bhattasali, N. K

Barua, B. M And Chakravarti, Pulin Behari

Chakravarti, S. N

Chhabra, B. CH

Das Gupta

Desai, P. B

Gai, G. S

Garde, M. B

Ghoshal, R. K

Gupte, Y. R

Kedar Nath Sastri

Khare, G. H

Krishnamacharlu, C. R

Konow, Sten

Lakshminarayan Rao, N

Majumdar, R. C

Master, Alfred

Mirashi, V. V

Mirashi, V. V., And Gupte, Y. R

Narasimhaswami, H. K

Nilakanta Sastri And Venkataramayya, M

Panchamukhi, R. S

Pandeya, L. P

Raghavan, V

Ramadas, G

Sircar, Dines Chandra

Somasekhara Sarma

Subrahmanya Aiyar

Vats, Madho Sarup

Venkataramayya, M

Venkatasubba Ayyar

Vaidyanathan, K. S

Vogel, J. Ph

Index.- By M. Venkataramayya

Other South-Indian Inscriptions 

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Vol. 4 - 8

Volume 9

Volume 10

Volume 11

Volume 12

Volume 13

Volume 14

Volume 15

Volume 16

Volume 17

Volume 18

Volume 19

Volume 20

Volume 22
Part 1

Volume 22
Part 2

Volume 23

Volume 24

Volume 26

Volume 27

Tiruvarur

Darasuram

Konerirajapuram

Tanjavur

Annual Reports 1935-1944

Annual Reports 1945- 1947

Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Volume 2, Part 2

Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Volume 7, Part 3

Kalachuri-Chedi Era Part 1

Kalachuri-Chedi Era Part 2

Epigraphica Indica

Epigraphia Indica Volume 3

Epigraphia
Indica Volume 4

Epigraphia Indica Volume 6

Epigraphia Indica Volume 7

Epigraphia Indica Volume 8

Epigraphia Indica Volume 27

Epigraphia Indica Volume 29

Epigraphia Indica Volume 30

Epigraphia Indica Volume 31

Epigraphia Indica Volume 32

Paramaras Volume 7, Part 2

Śilāhāras Volume 6, Part 2

Vākāṭakas Volume 5

Early Gupta Inscriptions

Archaeological Links

Archaeological-Survey of India

Pudukkottai

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

BAMHANI PLATES OF PANDAVA KING BHARATABALA : YEAR 2

(1 Plate)

B. CH. CHHABRA, OOTACAMUND

The Superintendent of Archæology, Rewa State, Baghelkhand, Central India, sent me this set of three copper plates, complete with the ring and the seal, for decipherment. According to the information kindly supplied by him, the find was unearthed, at a depth of nearly four inches, by one Maikuā, Bhariā (a sub-caste among the Gonds) by caste, on the 28th October 1940, while clearing the grass and thereby preparing a kharīhān (a piece of land for storing harvest) for his master, Gayā Prasād Brahmin, at a village called Bamhanī, tahsil Sōhāgpur, Police Station Burhār (a railway station on the Bilaspur-Katni section of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway), of the Rewa State. There are, I am told, as many as seven villages of the name of Bamhanī within the Rewa State, but the one with which we are concerned is distinguished by the foregoing description. It lies due cast of Burhār at a distance of about eighteen miles. I am indebted to His Highness the Bandhvesh Maharaja Saheb Bahadur, the Ruler of the Rewa State, for kindly according me permission to edit the record here.[1]

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The plates measure each roughly 7¾″ broad by 4½″ high. They are strung on a copper ring, about ¼″ in thickness, passing through a hole, ¾″ in diameter, cut in the centre of each plate near the margin. The ring must originally have been circular in shape, but in its present condition it is bent and elongated. Its ends are secured under a comparatively small seal with a diameter of ¾″. The seal bears no emblem or legend ; if there was any originally, it has now completely disappeared. The inscription on the plates is in an excellent state of preservation throughout. The first and third plates are engraved only on one side, while the second bears writing on both the sides. There are altogether 49 lines of writing, twelve being on the first face, thirteen on each side of the second plate and eleven on the last. All the plates together with the ring and the seal weigh 94 tolas.

The characters belong to the Southern class of alphabets, a variety, with southern characteristics, of the Central India alphabet of about the fifth century A. D., as Fleet would name it.[2] They represent a very rate type, in which the top of each letter, as a rule, consists of a small triangle with its apex downwards, and which, on that account, has appropriately been named [3] nail-headed ’. The known instances of the particular type employed in the present inscription are very few. In fact, I know of only two other examples : the Poona plates of the Vākāṭaka queen Prabhāvatiguptā3 and the Majhgawāṁ plates of the Parivrājaka Mahārāja Hastin.[4] The

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[1] The present article was already in an advanced stage of proof as early as June 1942 when, owing to the war conditions, the publication of this journal was suspended. In the meantime a short note by myself, entitled Kingdom of Mēkalā, based on these plates, has appeared in the Bhārata Kaumudī (Dr. Radha Kumud Mookerji Volume), Part I, Allahabad, 1945, pp. 215-9.
[2] C. I. I., Vol. III (Gupta Inscriptions). pp. 18 f.
[3] Above, Vol. XV, pp. 39 ff. and plate.
[4] C. I. I., Vol. III, pp. 106 ff., plate XIV. From the portions of the first two lines of the Khoh copper plate inscription of the Parivrājaka Mahārāja Saṁkshōbha of the year 209, reproduced on Plate IV in Cunningham’s A. S. I. Reports, Vol. IX, it appears that the script of this record is also of the same nail-headed variety as the one under discussion, but the reproduction of the full inscription on Plate XV in the C. I. I., Vol. III, does not bear it out. Additional examples of the present variety are however, afforded by some minor inscriptions such as the short pilgrims’ records engraved on the face of the wall in the cave of Durgākho near Chunār in the Mirzapur District of the United Provinces (Cunningham’s A. S. I. Reports, Vol. XI, Plate XXXVIII ; Vol. XXI, Plate XXXII) and the Shorkot inscription of the year 83 supposed to be of the Gupta era (above, Vol. XVI, Plate facing p. 15). Some later examples are found in the Tur rock inscription in Chambā, assigned to the beginning of the eighth century (Vogel, Anequities of Chamba Slate, Part I, p. 148, Plate XII) and in the first two lines of the Khāmkhēḍ plates (above, Vol. XXII, Plate facing p. 94). After this article had been sent to the press, Mr. N. L. Rao kindly drew my attention to two more instances : the Paṇḍaraṅgapallī grant of Avidhēya (An. Rep. Mysore Arch. Department, 1929, Plate XIX, facing p. 196) and the Sūnāo Kala plates of Saṁgamasiṁha of the [Kalachuri] saṁvat 292 (above, Vol. X, Plate facing p. 74). While the former has some letters of the nail-headed variety spoken of here, the script of the latter is practically the same as that of the present record.

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