North Indian Inscriptions

TIDGUNDI PLATES OF VIKRAMADITYA VI.

Bombay Presidency ; and they were recently in the possession of the late Mr. Sh. P. Pandit, who has published a translation of the inscription which they contain, with a lithograph of the text, in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. I. p. 80 ff. I edit the inscription from two excellent impressions, supplied to me by Dr. Fleet.

......These are three copper-plates, the second of which is engraved on both sides, while the others are so on one side only. Each plate measures about 12½’’ broad by 9” high. The edges of the plates are fashioned thicker, so as to serve as rims to protect the writing, and the writing in consequence is in a perfect state of preservation throughout. The plates are strung on a ring, which had not been cut when this record came into Dr. Fleet’s hands. This ring is about 4½” in diameter and ⅝” thick, and holds a circular seal, about 2⅝” in diameter. The seal contains, in relief on a countersunk surface, in the centre a lion or tiger, standing to the proper right, with the head turned to the front ; above it, in the middle the moon, on the left the sun, and on the right an open right hand, held up with the palm to the front ; beneath the lion or tiger, from the right to the left, a straight sword or dagger, a palm-tree (?), a cobra, standing on the tip of its tail, with the hood expanded, and a svastika, the short turn-backs of which are going the wrong way. The weight of the three plates is 554½ tolas, and that of the ring and seal 106½ tolas ; total, 661 tolas. — The size of the letters is between 7/16” and 9/16”. The characters are Nâgarî ; they include the sign of the upadhmânîya, in the word vâhpa, in line 28. The language is Sanskṛit ; but the birudas in lines 32 to 39 have the terminations of the Kanarese nominative case (anu, aṁ or a),¹and the text contains, in addition to some Kanarese proper names, five words which are Kanarese, adaṭa, l. 34, baṇṭa, l. 36, bêṇṭekâra, l. 35, and manneya and sâmya. l. 42. The inscription opens with three verses glorifying, or invoking the blessing of, the gods Vishṇu and Śiva, and ends with one of the ordinary imprecatory verses, and it also contains two verses in lines 24-32 and one verse in lines 40-42 ; the rest is in prose.

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As regards orthography, ri is generally²employed instead of the vowel ṛi, and b is always denoted by the sign for v ; the dental sibilant is often used instead of the palatal, and the palatal twice instead of the dental (in sahaśra, l. 16, śva-dattâṁ, l. 48) ; and the word êsha is written yêsha in line 25 (and was so written originally also in line 26), and tâmra-tâṁvra in line 48. As regards the inscription in general, it may be noted that the main part of it, from line 8 to line 44, consists really of a single sentence, but that this sentence is broken up by the insertion of descriptions of two personages chiefly concerned, which, rather oddly, are worded just as an independent document or order of either would be expected to commence.

......The inscription refers itself to the reign of the Western Châlukya Tribhuvanamalladêva³ (Vikramâditya VI.) ; and records that, on a date which will be given below, a dependent of Tribhuvanamalla, the Mahâmaṇalêśvara king (mahîpati) Muñja— a son of Sindarâja, who was the eldest son of Bhîma, the governor of the Pratyaṇḍaka-Fourthousand, of the Sinda vaṁśa— sold the Vâyvaḍa group of twelve villages, with the exception of the village of Ṭakkalikâ, to another dependent of Tribhuvanamalla, the Mahâsâmanta Kannasâmanta. Of both the vendor and the purchaser a large number of birudas are enumerated in the text ; here it will suffice to draw attention to the titles of Muñja, a few o which may hereafter perhaps turn out to be of some historical importance.

......The date on which the above sale is stated to have taken place, is ‘Sunday, the first of the bright half of Kârttika, when six years of the glorious Vikrama time had elapsed, in the seventh current year, the year Dundubhi.’ The era here employed is more commonly described
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......¹ [Rêvaṇadêvan=aṅkakâra in line 36 contains the Kanarese genitive ºdêvana ; on aṅkakîra, ‘a champion,’ see Dr. Fleet’s Kanarese Dynasties, p. 41 ; Ind. Ant. Vol. XV. p. 276 f. ; and von Bohtlingk’s Dictionary, s. v. Baṇṭara in the same line is the gen. plur. of baṇṭa.— E. H. ]
......² Originally the vowel ṛi was throughout written by the syllable ri, but the mistake has been corrected perhaps three times.
......³ See page 305 above, note 1.