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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA BANGAON PLATE OF VIGRAHAPALA III ; REGNAL YEAR 17 follow in lines 47-49 speak of the dūta or dūtaka (i.e., the executor of the grant) and the engraver of the plate in the usual style of the charters of Vigrahapāla III. What is, however, very interesting in our record is that its dūta is said to have been the mantrin Prahasitarāja described as a son of the king. Why, in the name of this as yet unknown son of Vigrahapāla III, the ending rāja has been preferred to the expected pāla cannot be determined.[1] The engraver of the plate was the artisan Śaśidēva who was the son of Hrīdēva hailing from Pōshalī. We know that several engravers of the Pāla plates hailed from the same village. Indeed the same verse also occurs at the end of the Āmgāchhī pla6te where, however, Śaśidēva is called Mahīdharadēva-sūnu instead of Śrīmān=Hrīdēva-sūnu. The passage in our record is, however, grammatically wrong and requires some modification. Whether the reading intended is śrī-Mahīdēvaº cannot be determined, although in such a case Mahīdharadēva and Mahīdēva may have been regarded as identical. An interesting feature of the charter under discussion is the peculiar endorsement in two verses at the end (lines 49-50). According to this, the real donor of the land was not, as recorded in the grant, the king but one of his Brāhmaṇa officers, named Ghaṇṭīśa. This man is described as a vidhēya or servant of the lord of Gauḍa, i.e., the Pāla king, and as having friendship with several rulers. He is said to have made the grant out of his own hala, probably meaning the jāgīr under his possession. Ghaṇṭīśa was the son of Yōgēśvara and the grandson of Vivada. This Vivada is said to have been born of Iddhahalā, daughter of Gōhaṇaka and granddaughter of Kāchchha who came [to Tīrabhukti or North Bihār] from Krōḍāñcha. There is no doubt that Krōḍāñcha is the same as Kōlāñcha mentioned earlier in the inscription as the original home of Ghāṇṭūkaśarman, donee of the grant. The nature of the present grand seems to be similar to that of such records as the Kailan (otherwise called Kailain) plate,[2] according to which an officer of a king got a piece of land (probably by purchase) from his master and parts of if were granted in favour of certain learned Brāhmaṇas and of a Buddhist religious establishment. In the present case, the king merely permitted and ratified the grant making the gift land a permanent revenue-free holding.
Besides the mention of a new Pāla jaya-skandhāvāra and a hitherto unknown son of Vigrahapāla III serving as a minister of his father, and the interesting nature of the grant actually made by a private individual but represented as a royal gift because the king made the land a rent-free holding, a fact of considerable importance in the Bangāon plate is its date. So long, the latest definitely known date of the reign of this king was his 12th regnal year.[3] Of course there were the Kurkīhār image inscriptions,[4] dated in the 19th regnal year of Vigrahapāla, and a manuscript of the Pañcharakshā copied in the 26th year of his reign.[5] But it was not known whether these dates should have to be referred to Vigrahapāla III or his great-grandfather Vigrahapāla II. The recently discovered Naulāgarh image inscription,[6] dated in the 24th regnal year of Vigrahapāla, without any indication in regard to his identity, also did not solve the problem. Thus the position was that, while Vigrahapāla III was known to have ruled at least for about 12 years, either the same king of Vigrahapāla II may have ruled at least for about 26 years. Under the circumstances, some writers[7] assigned to Vigrahapāla II a short reign of less than one year but to Vigrahapāla III a long reign of about 26 years, while others[8] assigned the long reign-period to Vigrahapāla II. In _________________________________________________
[1] Was it due to the fact that Prahasitarāja was born of a concubine of king Vigrahapāla III ? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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