North Indian Inscriptions

DUDIA PLATES OF PRAVARASENA II.

that of the ring, the copper band and the seal, ½ lb ; total, 3¾’’ lbs.─ The size of the letters is about ¼.’’ The characters belong to the southern class of alphabets, and furnish another good illustration of the ‘box-headed’ variety of the Central-Indian alphabet, of which we find several specimens in Dr. Fleet’s Gupta Inscriptions. They are, in fact, almost identical with the characters of the Siwanî grant, in Plate xxxv. of Dr. Fleet’s volume, and the only letter, the form of which essentially differs in both inscriptions, is l, as may be seen, e.g., from the representation of the words amala-jala in line 5 of both grants. As regards the present plates, it may be mentioned that we have here two forms of n (e.g. in sûnôḥ sûnôḥ, l. 3), of b (e.g. in bṛihaspati, l. 1, and Darbbhamalakê, l. 16), and of the superscript i (e.g. in svâmi-, l. 3, and Namidâsê, l. 29 ; balivardda, l. 19, and likhitaṁ, l. 29) ; and that the inscription offers instanees of the signs for final t, n , and m (e.g. in dṛishṭam and Pravarapur[â]t, l. 1, and vasundharân, l. 27).— The language is Sanskṛit, and, excepting the legend on the seal which is in the Anushṭubh metre, and one of the ordinary imprecatory verses, here ascribed to Vyâsa, in lines 27-28, the inscription is in prose. As regards orthography, what will probably strike the reader most, are the frequent non-observance of the rules of external saṁdhi, and the equally frequent employment of short vowels (particularly a) instead of long ones. Of changes permitted in grammar, I would specially point out the doubling of k before r, e.g. in parâkkrama, ll. 4 and 25, and sarvva-kkriyûbhis, l. 22 ; the similar doubling of th and dh before y in Bhâgiratthy-amala-, l. 5, and sarvv[â*]ddhyaksha, l. 13 ; the doubling of v after anusuvâra in paradattâ[ṁ] vvâ, l. 27, and saṁvvatsarê, l. 28 ; and the use of the upadhmânîya in bhûmêh=pañchaº l. 16, and râjñah=Pravaraº, l. 3 of the seal.- The text contains several compounds which cannot be justified by the rules of grammar, and also a number or wrong forms, for some of which the official who drew up the grant grant may be held responsible, while others undoubtedly are due to carelessness on the part of the writer or engraver. The phraseology of the formal part of this charter, as well as of the others issued by the same donor, in some respects¹ differs considerably from that of other copper-plate inscriptions, and exhibits (in lines 19-21) some revenue-terms which have not been met with elsewhere, and of which no satisfactory explanation can as yet be offered.

......The inscription is one of the Vâkâṭaka Mahârâja Pravarasêna II. It has been written by one Gôladâsa (l. 29) ; and is dated (in ll. 28-29) on the tenth day of the fourth fortnight of the rainy season in the twenty-third year (of the Mahârâja’s reign), while Namidâsa was the Sênâpati. And its object is, (in ll. 13-18) to record the grant, in the Ârammi province or distrcit (râjya),² of 25 bhûmis³ (of land) at Darbhamalaka, in the Chandrapura saṁgamikâ,⁴ to one Yakshârya of the Kauśika gôtra, and of 60 bhûmis (of land) at the village of Karmakâra, in the Hiraṇyapura bhôga,⁵ to one Kâliśarman of the Kauṇḍinya gôtra. Beyond this, the inscription yields no information whatever that has not been furnished already by the Chammak and Siwanî grants,⁶ which were issued by the same Pravarasêna II. in the 18th year of his reign. Like those other inscriptions, it opens with the word dṛishṭam, which I take to be employed simply as a term of good omen,⁷ the more so because it is not accompanied here by any other word of auspicious import ; and, as is the case with the Chammak grant, this charter also professe to be issued from Pravarapura. the inscription then, up to line 12,
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......¹ Compare especially nes 13-14, 18-21, and 24-26.
......² Compare the similar use of the word râshṭra in other inscriptions, e.g. page 145 above.
......³ See Gupta inscriptions, p. 241, note 9.
......⁴ Chandrapura-saṁgamikâ probably means a tract of land near the confluence of two rivers at, or in the neighbourhood of, Chandrapura.
......⁵ This word, which is used also elsewhere as a territorial term, is quite clear in the original. In line 18 of the Siwanî plates we find bhâga (if this be really the reading intended) used apparently in the same sense.
......⁶ See Gupta inscriptions, p. 235 ff. and p. 243 ff.
......⁷ See ib. p. 240, note 2. Professor Bühler is inclined to take dṛishṭam in its literal sense and to translate it by ‘seen,’ the word indicating, according to his view,’that the copy of the grant given to the donees had been seen, and was acknowledged to be correct, by the minister or by the keeper of the records ;’ see Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 9.