Contents |
Index
|
Introduction
|
Contents
|
List of Plates
|
Additions and Corrections
|
Images
|
Contents |
Chaudhury, P.D.
|
Chhabra, B.ch.
|
DE, S. C.
|
Desai, P. B.
|
Dikshit, M. G.
|
Krishnan, K. G.
|
Desai, P. B
|
Krishna Rao, B. V.
|
Lakshminarayan Rao, N., M.A.
|
Mirashi, V. V.
|
Narasimhaswami, H. K.
|
Pandeya, L. P.,
|
Sircar, D. C.
|
Venkataramayya, M., M.A.,
|
Venkataramanayya, N., M.A.
|
Index-By A. N. Lahiri
|
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
PARBATIYA PLATES OF VANAMALAVARMADEVA
(1 Plate)
P. D. CHAUDHURY, GAUHATI AND D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
A set of three copper plates was discovered by a cultivator while tilling his field at the village
of Parbatiyā which lies about three miles from the town of Tezpur in the Darrang District,
Assam. It was secured by Mr. Biswadeb Sarma who was then a student of the Law College,
Gauhati. Mr. Sarma handed over the plates to his teacher, Mr. S. K. Datta, Barrister-at-Law,
then Principal of the Law College. Ultimately they were presented to the Assam Provincial
Museum, Gauhati, where they are now deposited.
The plates measure 10″ by 6. 2″. They are held together by a ring to which a seal, similar
to those found with the charters of the ancient kings of Prāgjyōtisha, is soldered. The seal is
oval in shape with its diameter measuring lengthwise 4. 7″ and breadthwise 4. 3″. It has a
conical projection at the top and contains, on counter-sunk surface, the emblem of an elephant
facing front, below which, separated by a cross-bar, is the legend in characters similar to those
employed in the inscription on the plates. The legend is written in three lines and reads :
1 Svasti [ ||* ] Śrīmān=Prāgjyōtish-ādhip-ānva-
2 yō mahārājādhirāja-śrī-Vanam[ā]-
3 lavarmmadēva[ḥ ||*]
The first and the third plates have writing on one side only, while the second is inscribed on
both the sides. There are altogether 59 lines of writing, the first plate having 15 lines, the
second 16 on the obverse and 15 on the reverse, and the third only 13. The borders of the plates
are raised; but the rims of the first plate are damaged and the last line of the inscription on its
face is partially obliterated. The upper border of the obverse of the second plate is also slightly
damaged towards the right. With the exception of certain aksharas in the last line on the first
plate as well as the vowel-marks of a few aksharas in the first line of the same plate and also
of line 1 on the obverse of the second plate, the inscription is in a good state of preservation.
The aksharas are neatly and beautifully incised. With the exception of the third plate, all the
inscribed faces of the plates have one or more aksharas in the margin opposite the ring-hole or in
the space left out near about the hole. In the margin of plate I (reverse) there is the single
aksharas śrī, while plate II (reverse) has similarly sa. But in the space near the ring-hole of plate
II (obverse) there are the stray aksharas śrī, śrī, sa, sa and sta (?) together with two indeterminable
marks, which are all fashioned here and there without any order. They, however, do not appear
to have been the aksharas inadvertently omitted in the inscription on the faces of the plates in
question. The akshara śrī may of course be taken as a maṅgala ;but the other aksharas can
hardly be accounted for.[1] The plates together with the seal weigh 258 tolas, while the seal alone
weighs 127 tolas.
The characters employed belong to the East Indian variety of the Siddhamāṭrikā or Kuṭila
script of the ninth century, sometimes called Early Nāgarī or Proto-Bengali.[2] Indeed it is the
Gauḍī lipi or the East Indian script as known to Al-Bīrūnī[3] and was the source from which the
Bengali alphabet and the allied Assamese, Oriya and Maithili scripts gradually developed. The
inscription employs several times the initial vowels a (lines 2, 5, 58), i (lines 4, 10, 19, 22, 23, 53),
u (lines 41, 50) and ē (lines 15, 28, 50, 52). Initial i is of the ordinary type in all the cases,
_________________________________________________
[1] For similar stray aksharas on the lost Tezpur plates of Vanamālavarman, see P. N. Bhattacharya, Kāmarūpa-śāsan-āvalī, p. 62 and note 2.
[2] Some of the aksharas (cf. a, kh, g, j, s, medial ē and au, etc.) closely resemble their Bengali-Assamese forms.
[3] Sachau, Alberuni’s India, Vol. I, p. 173; cf. JRASB, L, Vol., XIV, 1948, pp. 115-16; IHQ, Vol. XXVIII,
pp. 130-31.
|