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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA HINGNI BERDI PLATES OF RASHTRAKUTA VIBHURAJA ; YEAR 3 (1 Plate) MORESHWAR G. DIKSHIT, SAUGAR This copper plate grant is from the collection of the Bhārata Itihāsa Saṁshōdhaka Maṇḍala, Poona, where it has been deposited for the last 27 years. It is reported to have been found in the possession of a Brahmin at Hingṇi Berḍi, a small village on the bank of the Bhīmā river, near Dhond in the Poona District. It was obtained by Śrī P. R. Alegaonkar who passed it on to Prof. Datto Waman Potdar for the purpose of decipherment and publication. At the request of the latter, Mr. P. M. Chandorkar read a short note based on this record before the Sixth Annual Session of the B. I. S. Maṇḍaḷa in 1926.[5] As the reading given by him is not altogether satisfactory, I re-edit the plates here with the kind permission of the secretaries of the said institute.
The set consists of two sheets of copper, each measuring about 5 inches in length and 2½ inches in breadth. The weight of the two plates is 14 tolas. In the upper margin of each plate there is a small roundish hole, about 2/10 inch in diameter through which a copper ring is passed for holding them together. The two ends of the ring are secured under a lump of copper which is flattened and bears on it the incised figures of an akshamālā, consisting of eleven beads, a kamaṇḍalu-shaped spouted vessel on its left and a daṇḍa[6] on its right, apparently the requisites of a saṁnyāsin. The ring weighs 1½ tolas. The inscription on the plates consists of 22 lines writing, of which 9 are engraved on the second side of the first plate, 10 lines on the first side of the second plate and the remaining 3 on the second side of the latter. As the rims of both the plates are raised, the engraving has remained in a fair state of preservation. The characters are of the nail-headed variety of the southern alphabet current in the fifth and sixth centuries A. C. The record is very carelessly engraved and exhibits certain peculiarities which deserve close attention. We see mostly nail-headed or acute-angled letters in the first plate, while the second plate shows small circles or pin-heads on the top of certain letters. These _________________________________________________
[1] The reading may possibly also be āyya-Āgisamēna ; but I am inclined to ignore the traces about the tail of
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