South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

TWO PLATES OF DEVANANDADEVA

II.-NARSINGPUR PLATE OF DEVANANDADEVA

In July 1943, a person named Arta Sahu got the copper plate under discussion from a streamlet called Chitra flowing by Narsingpur, the headquarters of the Narsingpur State in Orissa. Without disclosing the fact of this discovery, he stealthily sold the plate to a goldsmith. There being dissension regarding the payment of its price, the matter was brought to the notice of the Narsingpur Darbar which then secured the plate. It was found that the goldsmith had cut off a small portion of it apparently for the examination of the metal. With the help of the Political Agent of Orissa States at Sambalpur, Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra arranged to get the plate for examination and registration in November, 1944.

This is a single plate, having writing on both the sides. There are 12 lines of writing on the obverse and 13 lines on the reverse. The plate measures about 7½″ by 59/16″ and has a circular projection from the middle of its left end, forming the seal about 2½″ in diameter. On this seal, which resembles the seal of the Jurerpur plate described above, are found the emblems of the crescent and sun (or star), a couchant bull facing proper right and another symbol looking like an elephant goad but apparently representing a conch. Below these emblems is engraved in early Nāgarī characters the legend Śrī-Dēvānandadēva. Below the legend are two parallel straight lines. At the bottom of the seal is an expanded lotus. The plate weighs 66 tolas. The lost portion at the bottom right cut off by the goldsmith measures about ⅜″ by 5¼″. This has resulted in the loss of more than half of the last line of the inscription on the obverse and that of the first line on the reverse.

The characters resemble those of the Baripada Museum and Jurerpur inscriptions of Dēvānandadēva and the Talmul inscription of Dhruvānanda, although there are many cases of careless engraving. The language of the record is incorrect Sanskrit ; but in this respect, as will be shown below, the present inscription cannot be compared with any other record of the family. It has certain orthographical features in common with the other inscriptions, although in a number of cases letters have been engraved without any idea of forming by them any word bearing sense. This is because the record under discussion is not a regular and complete charter. It appears to be a hopelessly defective copy of some portions of two regular charters.

Before analysing the contents of the present inscription, I may offer a tentative suggestion regarding the circumstances leading to the preparation of such a peculiar document. It seems that two genuine charters of king Dēvānandadēva in the possession of a family became very much damaged possibly as a result of having been burnt in fire. The seal of one of the plates appears to have been totally lost and the writing on both the plates became in most places unreadable. Owing to difficulties in getting a reissue of the charters, the family enjoying the lands granted probably managed to forge the present document. The seal of one of the original charters being saved was attached to a new copper plate prepared for the purpose of engraving the records afresh. The engraver, however, meant to incise only the letters that could be read by him on the damaged originals, but he did it in a consecutive manner without thinking whether the letters engraved would form correct words and offer any sense at all. The most interesting thing in the present record is that it contains portions of several verses in the Śārdūlavikrīḍita metre and that these stanzas appear to be different from those found in the known charters of the family. The beginning of the record also differs from that of the other records.

The record begins with the symbol for siddham followed by the word svasti just as other records of the Nanda family of Orissa. Then comes a passage (ll. 1-2) which, although defective, seems to be an adjective, qualifying the place wherefrom the original charter was issued. From other records of the family, it is known to have been Jayapura, the capital of the Nanda kings. Next