The Indian Analyst
 

South Indian Inscriptions

 

 

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

TWO GRANTS FROM DASPALLA

(2 Plates)

D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND

About the beginning of October 1952, I received for examination two copper-plate inscriptions from Mr. P. Acharya, Superintendent of Research and Museum, Government of Orissa, Bhubaneswar. I was informed that the inscriptions had been found in the old Daspalla State, now merged in Orissa as a sub-division of the Puri District, and that Mr. Satyanarayan6a Rajaguru, Assistant Curator of the Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneswar, had prepared a paper on them for publication in the Orissa Historical Research Journal. Mr. Acharya, however, was kind enough to permit me to edit both the inscriptions in the Epigraphia Indica. I am extremely thankful to him for this kindness.

A.─Daspalla Plate of Dēvānanda ; Year 184

This copper plates, as I learn from Mr. Acharya, was found early in 1951 in the course of the re-excavation of an old tank in the village of Chikankhandi in the Jormu Pargana of Daspalla. The Pargana is situated on the right bank of the Mahānadī while the town of Daspalla lies on the left bank of the river. The plate was presented to the Orissa State Museum in June 1951 by Mr. Dasarathi Misra who is a teacher of the M. E. School at Jilinda in the Daspalla Sub-division.

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The inscription is written on both sides of the single plate measuring 10″X7·45″X·13″. A bronze seal, having the shape of an expanded lotus and measuring 3·25″ in diameter, is soldered about the middle of the proper right end of the plate. It resembles the seal attached to the charters of the family to which the issuer of the grant under discussion belonged. The border of the pericarpial portion (about 2·24″ in diameter) of this lotus-shaped seal is raised. In the hollow thus formed, the seal proper is countersunk. The central part of the space on the surface of the seal is occupied by the legend in one line : śrī-Dēvānandadēvasya, the subscript y in the last akshara being considerably lengthened towards the left so that the entire legend looks as doubly underlined. Above the legend is the figure of a couchant bull to proper right, with the emblems of a conch and a crescent above it. Below the legend there is the representation of an expanded lotus. The seal is fixed to the plate by means of two knobs running through holes made in the usual projection of the plate. These are covered by a lump of metal forming the back of the seal. Some eight or nine lines of writing about the middle of the plate on both its sides are shorter owing to the encroachment of the lower part of the seal. The plate together with the seal weighs 143½ tolas.

In respect of palaeography, language and orthography, the present record closely resembles the published charters of the family to which its issuer belonged. In a few cases (cf. sarvadā in line 11, sarva in line 23) the superscript r reminds us of a similar form of it in the inscriptions of the Pālas of Bengal and Bihar.1 The charter is dated in the year 100 80 4, i.e., 184 (the symbol for 100 resembling the akshara lu) of an unspecified era which appears to be identical with the reckoning used in the records of the imperial family of the Bhauma-Karas of Orissa as well as in those of some of their feudatories, This era is now often identified with the Harsha era of 606 A. C. and in that case the year 184 of our inscription would correspond to 792 A.C. But it has been noticed that the palaeography of the inscriptions dated in the era in question points to a considerably later epoch for it. As will be seen in our discussion on Śatrubhañja’s plates edited below, the beginning of this era now seems to be nearly two centuries later than that of the Harsha

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[1] See above, pp. 2 and 49.

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