North Indian Inscriptions

SPURIOUS SUDI PLATES.

with details falling in A.D. 351 ; published by Mr. Rice, Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 173, with a lithograph : the translation is also given in his Mysore Inscription, p. 293.

......(3) The Mallohaḷḷa grant of Avinîta-Koṇgaṇi, dated in the twenty-ninth year of his regin, in the Jaya saṁvatsara, which is taken by Mr. Rice to be Śaka-Saṁvat 377 current (A.D. 454-55) ; published by Mr. Rice, Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 136, with a lithograph : the translation is also given in his Mysore Inscriptions, p. 289.

......(4) The Merkara grant of the same person, dated in the 388 of an era which is unspecified but is taken to be the Śaka era, with details which, whether the year is applied as current or as expired, fall in A.D. 466 ; published by Mr. Rice, Ind. Ant. Vol. I. p. 363, with a lithograph : the translation is also given in his Mysore Inscriptions, p. 282 : the text, translation, and lithograph, have all been reproduced in his Coorg Inscriptions, p. 1.

......(5) The Bangalore Museum grant of Durvinîta-Koṅgaṇi, dated in the third year of his reign, which is taken by Mr. Rice to be A.D. 481-82 ; published by Mr. Rice, Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 174 : the translation is also given in his Mysore Inscriptions, p. 294.

......(6) The Mallohaḷḷi grant of the same person, dated in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, the Vijaya saṁvatsara, which is taken by Mr. Rice to be Śaka-Saṁvat 436 current (A.D. 513-14) ; published by Mr. Rice, Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 138, with a lithograph : the translation is also given in his Mysore Inscriptions, p. 29].

......(7) The Hosûr grant of Śrîpurusha-Pṛithuvî-Koṅgaṇi, dated Śaka-Saṁvat 684 expired, with details falling in A.D. 762 ; published by Mr. Rice,— translation only,— Mysore Inscriptions, p. 284.

......(8) The Nâgamaṅgala grant of the same person, dated in the fiftieth year of his reign, Śaka-Saṁvat 698 expired (A.D. 776-77) ; published by Mr. Rice, Ind. Ant. Vol. II. p. 155, with a lithograph : the translation is also given in his Mysore Inscriptions, p. 287.

......(9) The British Museum grant of Eregaṅga, which takes the genealogy only as far as Śivamâra-Koṅgaṇi, and contains no date of any kind, but seems intended to belong to a later period than that of Śrîpurusha ; published by myself, Ind. Ant. Vol. XIV. p. 229, with a lithograph.

......The genealogy and dates furnished by these records are shewn in the Table on the opposite page. And such details as are derivable from them, from a Tamiḷ chronicle called Koṅgudêśa-râjâkkaḷ, and from some later documents which have not yet been published, have been compiled by Mr. Rice, with the result of a tolerably lengthy and circumstantial accounts, such as it is ;¹ the misfortune is that there is so very little, in all the early part of it, that is authentic.

......In the inquiry into the nature of these records , the first point to attract attention is,— except in the Nâgamaṅgala grant ; and perhaps in the Hosûr grant, of which neither the text nor a lithograph is available.— the very marked badness of the orthography. Even the Nâgamaṅgala grant exhibits, here and there all through, just the characteristics slips that are to be expected somewhere or other in a document which, though prepared with skill and care, is nevertheless not genuine. But, as regards the other records, there are absolutely no genuine epigraphic remains which even approximate to them in this respect. And, for a suitable comparision, we have to go to such documents as the spurious Kurtakôṭi grant, which purports to be the time of the Western Chalukya king Vikramâditya I. and to have been issued in A.D. 610 (Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 217), but which is shewn, by even the date recorded in it, to be a palpable forgery, and belongs really to a very much later date. In respect of the British
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......¹ See Mysore Inscriptions, p. xl. ff., Coorg Inscriptions, Introd. pp. 1-11, and flually, Inscriptions at Śravaṇa-Beḷgoḷa, Introd. pp. 67-70 ; also some remarks in Ind. Ant. Vol. XIII. p. 187 ff.