|
The Indian Analyst
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA 5″ by 10″ each, while the length of the broken portion of the fifth plate varies from 2″ to 3½″. They are all strung on a circular ring about ½″ in thickness and 5″ in diameter, the ends of which are soldered into the bottom of a circular seal about 3″ in diameter with the rim raised all round. The set of plates with the ring weighs 292 tolas ; and the plates alone weigh 200 tolas.[1] The ring had been cut before the plates came to my hands. The seal : This is a very fine specimen of the seal of the Eastern Chāḷukya kings. The surface of the seal is countersunk on either side. The base of the seal is moulded into the shape of a four-petalled flower. On the upper face, it bears the legend Śrī-Tribhuvanāṁkuśaṁ in relief across the middle. Above the legend are represented in relief the crest of the Eastern Chāḷukya royal family, viz., the boar in a running posture facing the proper left, and other symbols of royalty : the elephant goad, the ḍamaru or the double drum, the śaṅkha or the conch shell, two chaurīs or flywhisks and the royal parasol. The figures of the crescent moon and the sun are found at the top. Below the legend are seen three objects, a four-legged stool in the proper right, a four-petalled flower in the centre, and a lotus bud with a stalk in the proper left. The alphabet is old Telugu, commonly met with in the inscriptions of the period to which the record belongs. The first side of the first plate and the second side of the fifth plate are left blank ; the other plates are written on both the sides. A peculiarity which is common to the copper-plate charters of Rājarāja I, the donor of the present grant, may be noted here. Including the present grant there are three sets of copper-plate records of the king that have come to light so far ; and they are all partially palimpsests.
Of the present grant the latter part is a palimpsest. Beginning with line 75 (10th line on the second side of the third plate), traces of earlier writing are distinctly visible up to the very end of the inscription ; but the characters have been so thoroughly beaten in that it is almost impossible to make out any letter. The reasons which prompted the adherence to this practice by the secretariat of Rājarāja I are not quite obvious. The first two plates have perhaps been engraved by a different hand ; but the form of the characters throughout the inscription is so much alike that it is not possible to lay any emphasis on this point. The language of the inscription is throughout Sanskrit, both verse and prose, 41 stanzas in different metres and 8 prose passages of varying length interspersed among them. However, a few Telugu words have crept into the text of the inscription, while describing the topography of the village granted, e.g., line 75, Pallapu-Gudravāra-vishayam ; lines 108-9, Tāmara-kolani-Krovviṇḍḷēṭaṁ-bāsina-Tallikroyya-nāma nadī. Several errors, mostly scribal, are found in the text and they have been noticed in the footnotes. The date of the record is either not given or lost in the missing portion. If the date were given,[2] as in the Nandampūṇḍi grant of the same king, at the end of the record, it must have been lost with the major part of the fifth plate. The text of the genealogy including the praśasti embodies in the inscription under consideration present close textual affinities, with slight variations here and there with the other Chāḷukya charters of the period especially the Kōrumelli plates[3] and the Nandampūṇḍi grant[4] of Rājarāja I himself and the Raṇastipūṇḍi grant[5] of his father, Vimalāditya. _________________________________________________
[1] The Superintendent for Epigraphy, Madras, kindly furnished me, at my request, with the necessary details
pertaining to the measurement, weight, etc., of the plates. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|