South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

SANGALOODA PLATES OF RASHTRAKUTA NANNARAJA :
SAKA 615

The chief Nannarāja who issued the present charter from Padmanagara is already known to us from two other inscription both belonging to his reign and in which the same genealogy is prefaced to his name. These are the Multai Plates^[1] and the Tiwarkhed Plates.^[2] The former is dated Śaka Saṁvat 631, expressed in words, and it records the gift made by Nannarāja of the village of Jalaükuhe situated to the west of Kiṇihivaṭṭāra, to the north of Pipparikā, to the east of Jalukā and to the south of Arjunagrāma. None of these villages has been located yet. The place from which the charter was issued is not specified. But the findspot of the record is known to be Multai in the Betul District of Madhya Pradesh which lies about a hundred miles northeast of Akōla, the locality in which the Sangalooda Plates were found. The other inscription, viz., the Tiwarkhed Plates, discovered near Multai, records another grant by the same king Nannarāja, of some land in the village of Tivērēkhēṭa, i.e., modern Tiwarkhed, on the south bank of Aṁvēviaka. The date of this record is given both in words and numerals as 553 of the Śaka era and the place of issue of the charter was Achalapura, i.e., Ellichpur, 50 miles north of Akōla.

Although the chiefs mentioned in the three charters are the same and the texts of the inscriptions up to the donative portion are identical except for slight variations here and there, and some omissions in one of them, viz., the Tiwarkhed Plates, some remarkable differences do exist in other respects between our inscription and the other two. In the first place the latter two are engraved in the angular northern characters while the present Sangalooda Plates are incised in the rounded southern characters. Again, there is great difference in the dates quoted in the three records although they purport to have been issued by the same king. In the Tiwarkhed Plates the Śaka year 553 is given as the date of that charter while our grant and the Multai Plates are dated in Śaka 615 and 631 respectively. Obviously the Tiwarkhed Plates must be understood to quoted a wrong date, since in other respects also, besides the disparity of over sixty to eighty years in date between that and the others, this charter is faulty and contains large omissions in the textual portion which in the other two is complete and identically worded. These and other defects in the Tiwarkhed Plates, as pointed out by Prof. Mirashi,^[3] cast some doubts on their genuineness.

The difference in the script of our record as compared with the other two is indeed noteworthy. That in the same region two different scripts were employed and that by the same king must be considered to hold some particular significance, the nature of which it is difficult to establish although similar instances are known.^[4] There are indications afforded by the present charter to

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^[1] Ind. Ant., Vol. XVIII, pp. 230 ff. and plates. ^[2] Above, Vol. XI, pp. 276 ff. and plate. ^[3] Above, Vol. XXVIII, p. 3. ^[4] We have inscriptions of the Telugu Chōla chief Puṇyakumāra coming from the same locality, some of which are engraved in the Telugu-Kannaḍa script of the Chālukya variety and some others in the Pallava-Grantha characters, e.g., his Tippalūr inscription is in the Pallava-Grantha script (above, Vol. XXVII, p. 231 and plate) while his Rāmēśvaram Pillar inscription is in the Telugu-Kannaḍa script of the Chālukya style (above, Vol. XXVII, p. 234 and plate). It is well known that this chief was a feudatory alternately of the Pallavas and the Chālukyas (above, Vol. XXVII, p. 251). Attention may also be drawn in this connection to the enigma presented by some charters of the Śailōdbhava king Mādhavavarman, the characters of each of which are so dissimilar to those of the others, thus presenting a palæographical ‘ incongruity ’. While two of his charters, viz., the Ganjam Plates (above, Vol. VI, p. 144 and pl.) and the Cuttack Museum Plates (above, Vol. XXIV, p. 148 and pl.) are in one style, his other two records, viz., the Buguḍa Plates (above, Vol. VII, p. 100 and pl.) and the Puri Plates (above, Vol. XXIII, p. 122 and pl.) are engraved in quite a different script and style. The late Mr. N. G. Majumdar tried to give some explanation of the enigma presented by these charters (above, Vol. XXIV, p. 149). The two records of Dantidurga, viz., the Ellōrā Plates and the Sāmangaḍ Plates may also be cited as other instances in point. The former which is in southern characters like some Chālukya records of Gujarāt were issued by the chief when he was still a feudatory of the W. Chālukyas (above, Vol. XXV, pp. 26-7) while the latter which are in northern characters were issued by him as an independent sovereign. Although the genuineness of the latter has been called in question yet one cannot set aside the inscription altogether and for our purpose we are concerned with the script of the record (see above, Vol. XXV, p. 26).