Contents |
Index
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Introduction
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Contents
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List of Plates
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Additions and Corrections
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Images
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Contents |
Altekar, A. S
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Bhattasali, N. K
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Barua, B. M And Chakravarti, Pulin Behari
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Chakravarti, S. N
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Chhabra, B. CH
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Das Gupta
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Desai, P. B
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Gai, G. S
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Garde, M. B
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Ghoshal, R. K
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Gupte, Y. R
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Kedar Nath Sastri
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Khare, G. H
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Krishnamacharlu, C. R
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Konow, Sten
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Lakshminarayan Rao, N
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Majumdar, R. C
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Master, Alfred
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Mirashi, V. V
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Mirashi, V. V., And Gupte, Y. R
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Narasimhaswami, H. K
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Nilakanta Sastri And Venkataramayya, M
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Panchamukhi, R. S
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Pandeya, L. P
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Raghavan, V
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Ramadas, G
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Sircar, Dines Chandra
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Somasekhara Sarma
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Subrahmanya Aiyar
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Vats, Madho Sarup
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Venkataramayya, M
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Venkatasubba Ayyar
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Vaidyanathan, K. S
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Vogel, J. Ph
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Index.- By M. Venkataramayya
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Other
South-Indian Inscriptions
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Volume
1
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Volume
2
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Volume
3
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Vol.
4 - 8
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Volume 9
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Volume 10
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Volume 11
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Volume 12
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Volume 13
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Volume
14
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Volume 15
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Volume 16
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Volume 17
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Volume 18
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Volume
19
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Volume
20
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Volume 22 Part 1
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Volume
22 Part 2
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Volume
23
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Volume
24 |
Volume
26
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Volume 27 |
Tiruvarur
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Darasuram
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Konerirajapuram
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Tanjavur |
Annual Reports 1935-1944
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Annual Reports 1945- 1947
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Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Volume 2, Part 2
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Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Volume 7, Part 3
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Kalachuri-Chedi Era Part 1
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Kalachuri-Chedi Era Part 2
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Epigraphica Indica
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 3
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 4
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 6
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 7
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 8
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 27
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 29
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 30
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 31
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Epigraphia Indica Volume 32
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Paramaras Volume 7, Part 2
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Śilāhāras Volume 6, Part 2
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Vākāṭakas Volume 5
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Early Gupta Inscriptions
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Archaeological
Links
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Archaeological-Survey
of India
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Pudukkottai
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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]
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
_____________________
[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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