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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA The seal may be compared with the other known seals[1] of the king who issued the present charter. It will be seen that the name of Supratishṭhitavarman, found in the legend on the other seals before that of Bhāskaravarman, is omitted here. The name of Mahēndravarman has been shortened to Mahēndra and that of Nayanaśōbhā or Nayanadēvī, wife of Sthiravarman, to Nayanā apparently owing to the consideration of space.[2] The mother of Bhāskaravarman is called Dhruvalakshmī as on the other seals and not Śyāmādēvī, as in the Nidhanpur inscription[3]. One has also to note the forms of the names Sthiravarman (not Sthitavarman) and Susthitavarman (not Susthiravarman), which, as will be seen below, are both supported by the text of the inscription under discussion. The five plates together weigh 149 tolas, while the weight of the seal together with the ring is 87½ tolas. The characters employed in the inscription belong to the eastern variety of the North Indian alphabet prevalent in the sixth and seventh centuries. They have a general resemblance with the characters of the Nidhanpur inscription of the same king who issued the present charter ; but there are also certain remarkable differences in the forms of some aksharas and vowel-marks. The palaeography of the present record may be regarded as slightly earlier than that of the Nidhanpur plates. The top mātrā of the letters has been made thick in both the left and right ends ; but, while in the left the thickness has a slight prolongation downwards, the right end of the serif has a short ā-mātrā-like stroke attached below it. Of initial vowels, we have a (lines 7, 16, 51), ā (line 44), i (lines 35, 50, 56, 57, 85, 86, 92, 103), ī (line 32) and ē (lines 88, 112). Amongst these, interesting is the form of i which is made by a visarga sign followed by the sign for d.
The ā-mātrā is written in three different ways. Sometimes it is formed by slightly lengthening downwards the stroke at the right end of the serif, to which reference has been made above. In some cases, a small curve open towards the right is joined below the said stroke, while in many cases the ā-mātrā is made by joining the lower end of a slanting stroke above the right end of the serif of the consonants. Medial ī sign is made by means of two curved strokes placed side by side above the consonants, the left stroke being more curved towards the left than the right one. In many cases, the left curve is made into a loop, while the right stroke resembles the third variety of the ā-mātrā described above. Medial u is formed, as in early epigraphs, by putting a short vertical stroke below the consonants ; but, in such consonants as t, d and bh, its lower end is raised above upto the level of the serif at the right side of the letter. Medial ū is indicated in such cases by adding a curve that joins the prolonged u stroke about the middle or a little below and ends beneath the consonant. The akshara nu, however, is formed by the prolongation of the lower limb of n a little downwards, and there are some cases of tu also formed in the same way. Medial ṛī has been once employed in line 58. Among consonants, s is of the looped variety, usually known as the Eastern Gupta type, and there is hardly any difference between the form of this letter and that of sh. Another interesting fact is that the inscription employs both the so-called Eastern and Western Gupta types of the letter h, while m has only the form of the Eastern Gupta variety. The left curve of the letter y usually ends in another curved stroke having its opening downwards ; but in some cases it either ends in a horizontal top stroke or is curved towards the right. This second form of y has little difference from that of the letter gh. B has usually been indicated by the sign for v ; but there are a few cases in which the sign for b has been not only used in its proper place but also wrongly instead of v (cf. lines 29, 31, 33, 37). The final forms of t (lines 19, 35, 61, 94, 111) and n (lines 30, 49, 67, 73) are found many times in the inscription. The language of the inscription is Sanskrit. With the only exception of the names of the donees at the end, the entire record is written in verse, although the versification, with the ____________________________________________
[1] H. Sastri, Nalanda and its Epigraphic Materials (MASI, No. 66), pp. 69-70.
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