South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

who died as a Yuvarāja leaving behind his son Indrapāla.^[1] Indrapāla’s son was Gōpāla. The latter’s son was Harashapāla.^[2] From him and his queen Ratnā was born Dharmapāla.

Besides carrying the genealogy of the ala kings of Assam three generations further from Indrapāla, the inscriptions of Dharmapāla throw no new light on the history of Prāgjyōtisha. These grants, like those of Indrapāla and Ratnapāla, are not dated in any era. Chronologically, the Pālas of Assam followed the line of Prālambha which again was preceded by that of Sālastambha^[3] flourishing perhaps immediately after Bhāskaravarman. Brahmapāla, the first of the Pāla rulers in Assam, was chosen, we are told in his son Ratnapāla’s Bargaon grant, as king by the people to continue the line of Naraka, on Tyāgasiṁha (the last king of Sālastambha’s family) dying issueless.^[4] On palaeographical grounds, Hoernle^[5] was inclined to place Ratnapāla’s grants in circa 1010-1050 A.D. Brahmapāla, then, it appears, ruled somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1000 A.D. Regarding Dharmapāla’s period of rule, it may be stated that he flourished three generations later than Indrapāla whose Gauhati plates have been assigned to c. 1060 AD.^[6] on palaeographical reasons. Thus Dharmapāla reigned somewhere in the first half of the 12th century A.D. and this is supported by the palaeography of his inscriptions.

The object of the inscription is to record a grant made by king Dharmapāla of some land in Mērupāṭaka, producing six thousand measures of paddy.^[7] Merupātāka was a plot of land carved out of a bigger area called Digalandī belonging to the district of Purujī.^[8] The donee was Bhaṭṭa Mahābāhu, son of Vishṇu and grandson of Ummōka who was a Brāhmaṇa of the Kāśyapa gōtra and follower of the Kāṇva śākhā of the Yajurvēda and hailed from Madhyādēśa,

It may be stated here that only a portion of Mērupāṭaka yielding six thousand measures of paddy was given by this grant to Bhaṭṭa Mahābāhu. Another portion of it yielding the same quantity of daddy was already in the possession of Mahābāhu. As it is stated in line 45 of the inscription, this portion lay on the east of what was conveyed to him by the present grant.

Regarding the localities mentioned in the inscription, the name Prāgjyōtisha is applied here to a city, as also in some other records of Assam. The city stood somewhere near the modern town of Gauhati. The other localities could not be identified.

TEXT^[9]

First Plate

[Metres : vv. 1-13 Vasantatilakā ; v. 14 Mālinī ; v. 15 Āryā ; vv. 16, 17, 19, 20 and 22 Anushṭubh ; v. 18 Śārdūlavikrīḍita ; v. 21 irregular.] 1 S[v[asti | Vandē tam=Arddhay[u]vatīśvaram=ādidēvam=indīvar-ōraga-phaṇā-maṇi-karṇṇa- pūra[ṁ]^[10](ram |) [uttu]-

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^[1] There are two copper-plate grants of Indrapāla’s reign, namely, the Gauhati plates (JASB, Vol. XLVI,) 1897, pp. 113 ff., and Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, pp. 116 ff.) and the Guākuchi grant (Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, pp. 130 ff.).
^[2] No inscriptions of Gōpāla and Harshapāla, the grandfather and father respectively of Dharmapāla, have yet been found.
^[3] [But see above, Vol. XXIX, p. 149.─Ed.]
^[4] JASB, Vol. LXVII, 1898, p. 108.
^[5] Ibid., 1898, p. 102.
^[6] Loc. cit.
^[7] In line 30 of the inscription the piece of land in question is describe as dvi-sahasr-ōtpattika, i.e. producing only two thousand measures of paddy. But this is apparently a scribal mistake for shaṭ-sahasr-ōtpattika, for in line 43 of the record, the land granted to the donee is expressly called dhānya-shaṭ-sahasr-ōtpattikā bhūmi.
^[8] It is mentioned also in the Pushpabhadrā grant of Dharmapāla, line 46. See Kamarūpaśāsanāvalī, p. 177.
^[9] From impressions. Minor errors in the published transcript of the inscription have not been noted in all cases.
^[10] In the place of karṇṇapūra[ṁ], Padmanātha Bhaṭṭāhārya reads kaṇṭha-ba[ndhaṁ] in the Subhankarapāṭaka inscription (Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, p. 150).