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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA Since the donor of the present plates is described as the wife of Dēvarāja, it seems plausible to suggest that the Dēvarāja referred to by them is no other than the second person mentioned in the pedigree given above, because the palaeography of the record does not go against the age assigned to that ruler by Prof. Mirashi. In the Uṇḍikavāṭikā and Pāṇḍuraṅgapalli plates, this Dēvarāja is stated to have had three sons, but the names of only two of whom, viz., Abhimanyu and Bhavishya, are known from the inscriptional data available. As the queen of Dēvarāja is also called the mother of Māṇarāja in the present inscription, it is clear that Māṇarāja is the name of the hitherto unknown (third) son of Dēvarāja and he was probably the eldest. And this is quite in keeping with the ancient practice of naming the child after his grandfather, because the name of the father of Dēvarāja is known to be Mānāṁka, who founded the Mānapura branch of the Rāshṭrakūṭas. The grant was issued in the third regnal year of king Vibhurāja. His exact relationship with Śyāvalaṅgī Mahādēvī is not explicitly stated in the record. But since the plates are issued in the early part of the career of that king, I believe that Vibhurāja is an alias of Māṇarāja and that the plates were issued by the queen-mother Śyāvalaṅgī Mahādēvī after the death of her husband Dēvarāja. Whether it was actually so needs further corroboration. In the light of the details at present available, the genealogy of the family can be reconstructed as follows : 
The present plates were issued on the Vaiśākha paurṇamāsī day in the third regnal year of king Vibhurāja ; but these details are not quite sufficient to verify the date of the grant.
The mention of golden bars (suvarṇa-śalākā) given as dakshiṇā is also very interesting. It cannot be said if these bars bore any marks as on the bent-bar silver currency, so frequently noticed in ancient sites like Taxila on the North-Western borders of India. At any rate, no currency of the above description is known to have been current in Mahārāshṭra in the period in which the plates were inscribed. For want of adequate data, the geographical position of Kamalībhūhaka mentioned in the grant cannot be located. It is likely that it was the name of some plot in Hingṇi Berḍi itself where the plates were discovered. TEXT[1]
First Plate
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[1] From the original plates and ink impressions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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