South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

illustrated with a complete facsimile of the inscription. The importance of the epigraph led me to request Mr. Chaudhury to give me an opportunity to examine the original plates. He very kindly complied with my request and sent the plates to the office of the Government Epigraphist for India, Ootacamund, where they were properly cleaned and several sets of impressions and photographs of the inscription were prepared. On examination of the original plates as well as of their impressions and photographs, it was found that the text of the inscription as published by Mr. Chaudhụry was not quite free from errors and that the real import of certain verses inscribed on the first side of the fifth plate, which contain information of great historical importance, was entirely misunderstood. As these stanzas disclose a number of hitherto unknown facts about the struggle between Gauḍa and Kāmarūpa about the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century, I re-edit the inscription in the following pages. My thanks are due to Mr. Chaudhury for the opportunity given to me to study and republish the inscription.

The set, as now preserved in the Assam State Museum at Gauhati, consists of five plates only. The original size of the plates, as shown by the second and fifth plates, the sides of which are better preserved, was 9·3″ by 4·6″. But all the plates show some signs of corrosion here and there and pieces of metal have broken away from all the four sides of some of them. The first plate is inscribed on one face only while the other plates have writing on both the faces. There are altogether 117 lines of writing. The second side of the second plate has 14 lines and the second side of the third plate 12 lines, while the inscribed faces of the other plates have 13 lines each. The letters are very carefully and beautifully formed. The effects of corrosion, however, have rendered it difficult to decipher the letters at the beginning and the end of many of the lines, while entire passages have become undecipherable in the lines at the top and the bottom of the plates in some cases. The plates are strung together on a ring, the two ends of which are secured in a ladle-shaped lump of bronze containing the seal. This resembles the brazen seal attached to other charters of the early kings of Assam. The ring-hole at the side of the plates is ·8″ in diameter, while the margin near it measures ·6″ The surface of the seal is oval, its diameter being 3·4″ lengthwise and 3·1″ breadthwise. On the upper part of it is countersunk the figure of an elephant to front. About two-thirds of the seal below this royal emblem is covered by the legend in 11 lines, there being a straight line demarcating the figure of the elephant and the legend. The signs for medial ā and i (cf. datt-āº in line 1 and dviº in line 6) in the legend have often ornamental shapes not to be noticed in the body of the inscription. The legend describing the ancestry of the king responsible for the charter under discussion reads as follows :─

1 Śrīmān=Naraka-tanayō Bhagadatta-Vajradatt-ānvayō mahārājā-
2 dhirāja-śrī-Prāgjyōtish-ēndra-Pushyavarmmā tat-puttrō mahārājādhirā-
3 ja-śrī-Samudravarmmā tasya tanayō Dattadēvyāṁ-mahārājādhirāja-
4 Śrī-Va(Ba)lavarmmā tēna jātō^[1]dēvyāṁ śrī-Ratnavatyāṁ mahārājādhirāja-
5 śrī-Kalyāṇavarmmā śrī-Gandharvvavatyāṁ śrī-Gaṇapativarmmā śrī-Ya-
6 jñavatyāṁ śrī-Mahēndrō dvis-turagamēdh-āharttā śrī-Suvratāyāṁ śrī- Nārā-
7 yaṇavarmmā śrī-Dēvamatyāṁ śrī-Bhūtivarmmā śrī-Vijñānavatyāṁ śrī-
8 Chandramukhavarmmā śrī-Bhōgavatyāṁ dvir-aśvamēdha-yā-
9jī śrī-Sthiravarmmā tēna^[1] śrī-Nayanāyāṁ śrī-
10 Susthitavarmmā tēna^[1] Śrī-Dhruvalakshmyāṁ
11 śrī-Bhāskaravarmm=ēti [||*]

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^[1] Properly tasmāj=jālaḥ. For similar use in inscriptions, see above, Vol. XXXIX, p. 122.