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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA BARDULA PLATES OF MAHASIVAGUPTA : YEAR 9 peculiarities may be noted the occasional doubling of the consonant before or after r : as in pittrōr= l. 16. śavryya l. 3, sarvva l. 8, varjjitaḥ l. 10. The inscription purports to record the gift of a village named Vaṭapadraka situated in the Kōśīra-Nandapura vishaya to several Brāhmaṇas by the illustrious Mahāśivaguptarāja, son of Harshadēva, of the lunar lineage, and ardent worshipper of Mahēśvara, for his own merit, and that of his parents. The gift was made on the 12th day of the bright half of the month of Kārttika in the 9th year of his increasingly victorious reign. The grant village was to be divided into thirteen shares twelve of which were full and one was half. The full shares were to be enjoyed by Brāhmaṇas, whose names are specifically mentioned and who it seems had settled in the region of Chhātranāṭā.[1] The half share was to be allotted to a Brāhmaṇa of unimpeachable character (a-vigraha-charitāya). The royal order communicating this grant was addressed to the residents of the village, including the chief members amongst them (sa-pradhānān prativāsinaḥ), as also to the royal officials, Samāhartṛi, Sannidhātṛi and others including the Karaṇas.
This Mahāśivagupta belonged to the earlier line of rulers known as the Pāṇḍava or Sōmavaṁśī kings of South Kōsala and is identical with his namesake, who bore the distinctive epithet Bālārjuna as known from stone inscriptions discovered at Sirpur.[2] He had a distinguished career and was credited with an unusually long reign of about sixty years as indicated by the Lodhiā plates.[3] About half a dozen stone inscriptions and three copper plate documents assignable to his reign have so far been discovered. Of these records only two are dated, namely the Lodhia plates and the present one and the dates are in regnal years. But unfortunately these dates are not verifiable for want of sufficient details. So we have to fix his date by approximation only on consideration of palaeography and other circumstantial evidence. The latest attempt in this direction has been made by Principal V. V. Mirashi, in his ‘ Note on the Date of the Sōmavaṁśī Kings ’[4]. I generally agree with his views and place Mahāśivagupta in the first and second quarters of the 7th century A.D. In view of the high regnal year accorded to him by the Lodhiā plates, viz., 57th year, it is likely that his reign extended still further into the third quarter of the century. The following places are mentioned in the charter. The grant village Vaṭapadraka may be identified with modern Baṭapadaka, a small village about four miles from Bardūlā, the provenance of the present plates.[5] The territorial division (vishaya) Kōśīra Nandapura, wherein the grant village was situated, appears to be identical with Nandapura bhōga mentioned in the Pīpardūlā plates of the Śarabhapura ruler, Mahārāja Narēndra.[6] The headquarters of this Nandapura vishaya, which is qualified by the epithet Kōśīra (probably meaning scrubby from kuśara) to distinguish it from its other namesakes, may be identified with the site of the two adjoining villages, Nandapur big and small, in the Bilaspur District, not far from Sakti on the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. This site is reported to contain some ancient vestiges and herein was discovered a silver coin of Prasannamātra of the Śarabhapura family some years ago.[7] There is a reference in l. 11 to a tract named Chhātranāṭā wherein the donees, it appears, had settled down (Chhātranāṭā-sīma-nivishṭa). This name is similar to some of the Dravidian names denoting territory, such as Poonāṭa and Karnāta. I am unable to identify this region. _______________________________________________
[1] This passage may also be interpreted so as to mean that only the first person mentioned among the donees,
viz., Nārāyaṇōpādhyāya was a settler in the region called Chhātranāṭā. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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