North Indian Inscriptions

RECORDS OF THE SOMAVAMSI KINGS OF KATAK.

......Lines 60 to 62 praise a minister of the king, named Chhichchhaṭêśa, holding the office of Saṁdhivigrahin.

......And lines 63 to the end give the date of the thirteenth tithi in the bright fortnight of the month Jyêshṭha in the ninth year of the victorious reign of the most devout worshipper of (the god) Mahêśvara, the Paramabhaṭṭâraka, Mahârâjâdhirâja,¹ and Paramêśvara the ornament of the Sômakula, the lord of the three Kaliṅgas, the glorious Yayâtirâjadêva ; and tell us that the charter was engraved by a person named Mâdhava.

F.─ Kaṭak Copper-plate Grant of the third of Mahâ-Bhavagupta II.

......This record is now brought to notice for the first time, I believe. I edit it from the original plates, which I obtained for examination from Mr. Beames in 1883 or 1884. I have no precise information as to where they were found ; but it appears to have been somewhere at Kaṭak, or closely in the neighbourhood of that place.

......The plates are three in number, each measuring about 9¾” long by 7” broad at the ends and somewhat less in the middle. They are quite smooth, the edges of them having been neither fashioned thicker nor raised into rims ; and the inscription is in some places a good deal damaged by rust : but it can mostly be deciphered without any uncertainty.— The ring, on which the plates are strung is about ½” thick and 5” in diameter : it had been cut, before the time when the grant came under my notice ; but there is no reason for thinking that it is not the ring properly belonging to the plates. The seal, in which the ends of the ring are secured, is circular, about 1½” in diameter : the surface of it is very much damaged ; and whatever emblems and legend may have been on it are completely broken away.— The weight of the three plates is 6 lbs. 2 oz., and of the ring and seal, 1 lb. 6 oz. ; total, 7 lbs. 8 oz.— The characters are Nâgarî, of the northern class. They include forms of the decimal figure 3 in line 73. The avagraha occurs in yathâsmâbhir, line 35, where it is not really required. The virâma occurs with t, in tasmât and nagarât, line 12. Final forms occur,— of t, in ârât, line 11 ; of n, (1) a simpler form, in âdîn and sarvvân, line 34, pârthivêndrân, line 63, and śrêyân, line 68, and (2) a more complex form, illustrated best by śrîmân, line 14, and saṁjñân, line 21 ; and of m, resembling an anusvâra with a virâma attached to it or below it, in bhavatâm, line 35, and phalam, line 49. The average size of the letters is about 5/16”. The engraving is good and fairly deep ; but, the plates being substantial, the letters do not show through on the reverse sides. The interiors of them shew the usual marks of the working of the engraver’s tool.— In respect of orthography there is nothing to notice, except that v is used for b, throughout.

......The inscription is one of Mahâ-Bhavagupta II., otherwise called Bhîmaratha. The charter contained in it was issued from a city named Yayâtinagara, which might be identified with the modern Jâjpur, the chief town of the Jâjpur subdivision of the Kaṭak Distrcit, about fifty miles to the north-east of Kaṭak, but that lines 10 to 12 distinctly imply that Yayâtinagara was on the Mahânadî, whereas Jâjpur is only on the Baitaraṇî, a tributary of the Mahânadî, and is distant from the latter river as far as it is from Kaṭak itself. And the object of the charter was to register the fact that, on the occasion of an eclipse of the sun, a village named Gauḍasimiṇilli, in the Kôsala-Sâkhaṅgadyanhâ vishaya or district, was granted to a Brâhmaṇ. At the end there is given the date, evidently of the writing of the charter, of Mârgaśîrsha śukla 3 in the third year of the reign of Bhîmaratha, i.e. of Mahâ-Bhavagupta II.
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......¹ See page 354 above, note 8.