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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA are written in the regular East Indian alphabet of the seventh century, which offers a slightly different and earlier look. This fact was sometimes coupled with another that, while in the prise introduction in the Ganjam and Khurda plates Mādhavarāja II (Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II) is describe as the son of Ayaśōbhīta I and grandson of Sainyabhīta Mādhavarāja (Mādhavavarman I), the versified introduction in the Puri and Buguda plates and other later records of the family represents Ayaśōbhīta I (father of Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II Śrīnivāsa) as born in the family of Sainyabhīta I (Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman I). On the basis f these differences it was suggested by some writers[1] that a period of time must have intervened between the reigns of Sainyabhīta Mādhavarāja II, issuer of the Ganjan and Khurda plates, and Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II Śrīnivāsa. But the identity of the former with the latter was very clearly suggested by the Cuttack (Orissa) Museum plates[2] of Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II Śrīnivāsa, which are written in the same style as the Buguda and Puri plates and other later records of the family, but are engraved in characters similar to those of the Ganjam and Khurda plates. The evidence of the Cuttack (Orissa) Museum plates, however, does not appear to have satisfied all writers on the subject[3] even though it received welcome support from the palaeography of the Nivina grant and Banpur plates of Mānabhīta Dharmarāja.[4]
The language and orthography of the inscription under review do not call for any special remark as the style is the same as in other documents of the king, which have the introductory part in verses. Indeed the stanzas contained in the present record are mostly also found in the Buguda, Cuttack (Orissa) Museum and Puri plates. The officials responsible for the preparation of the charter are the same as those of the Buguda and Puri plates although, as has been noticed above, the original writing of the Buguda inscription was beaten in and re-engraved on the same plates some years after its issue. Both the present record and the Puri plates were issued by the king in his 13th regnal year. The date of the Buguda plates also may have been the same year ; but it seems to have been left out at the time of the re-engraving of the inscription at a later date. The introductory part of the Ganjam plates, issued in the Gupta year 300=619 A.D. when the Śailōdbhava king Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II was a feudatory of the Gauḍa monarch Śaśāṅka, as well as of the Khurda plates (without date), issued after his assumption of independence, is couched in prose. But the other charters of the king including the present record, all issued at a later period, contain a versified introduction, composed for the first time by one of the king’s court poets. Most of the stanzas are not only common in the Buguda, Cuttack (Orissa) Museum and Puri plates and the inscription under study but many of them are also quoted in the charters of the successors of Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II Śrīnivāsa. Verses 1-11 of our record are the same as verse 1-2, 4-12 of the grant of Ayaśōbhīta II Madhyamarāja while no less than nine of them are also quoted in the charter of Mānabhīta Dharmarāja, both of which have been edited by us above.[5] As we have shown in that connection, one of these stanzas (verse 11 of the present record) credits Sainyabhīta Mādhavavarman II Śrīnivāsa with the performance of several sacrifices including the Aśvamēdha which must have been celebrated sometime after 619 A.D., when the Śailōdbhava ruler was still a feudatory, but before his thirteenth regnal year, the earliest date so far found in the records containing the said stanza and issued during his independent rule. There is no doubt that the Śailōdbhava king succeeded in throwing off the _______________________________________________
[1] Above, Vol. XXIII, pp. 126-27 ; JAHRS, Vol. X, pp. 1-15. See also above, Vol. VII, p. 102, etc.
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