South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

No. 24─ PATTALI GRANT OF YUVARAJA RAJENDRAVARMAN, GANGA YEAR 313

(1 Plate)

D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND

This inscription was published by Mr. Manda Narasimham in the Telugu journal Bhārati, June 1954, pp. 574 ff. In April 1956, it was purchased from Mr. Narasimham for the Epigraphical Gallery in the Office of the Government Epigraphist for India. Nothing is known to us about the findspot of the record and the story of its discovery. Mr. Narasimham’s article in the Bhārati does not disclose any fact in these respects. But there is little doubt that the plates were discovered somewhere in the Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh.

The inscription is written on three copper plates held together by a ring bearing the seal of the issuer of the charter. The plates are rectangular in shape and measure each 7½ inches in length and 3½ inches in height. They have slightly raised rims. There is a hole (about ⅔ inch in diameter) in the left side of the plates for the ring to pass through. The diameter of the ring is about 4½ inches while its thickness is about ⅔ inch. The ends of the ring are soldered to the bottom of a thick circular seal about 1 inch in diameter. On the countersunk surface of the seal, which is considerably corroded, there are traces of the figure of a standing animal which is no doubt a bull that was the emblem of the Eastern Gaṅga kings. The three plates together weigh about 94 tolas and the ring and the seal about 38 tolas.

There are altogether 37 lines of writing in the inscription. But line 30 containing only three aksharas written between the beginning of lines 29 and 31 is not a continuous line, while the last line contains only one akshara followed by a daṇḍa. The inscription is incised on the inner side of the first plate and both the sides of the second and third plates. It has, however, to be noticed that, through oversight, the engraver originally began to incise the concluding part of the record (lines 34 ff.) on the outer side of the first plate instead of on the corresponding side of the third plate, which is its proper place. But the mistake was detected when only one line and a half had been engraved on the reverse of the first plate.

The characters belong to the later Kaliṅga script and resemble those of many early medieval inscriptions discovered in the Srikakulam region. The letter dh has the form of ddh in some cases as noticed often in inscriptions in the later Kaliṅga alphabet. The language of the record is corrupt Sanskrit and it is written in prose with the exception of a few imprecatory and benedictory stanzas at the end. In point of orthography, the record resembles other epigraphs of the area and age in question. The grant was issued in the year 313 of the Gaṅga era, which fell in the period between 809 and 811 A. D. The date is written both in words and in figures ; but there are no other details of the date.

The charter was issued from Kaliṅganagara by Yuvarāja Rājēndravarman, described as the son of Mahārājādhirāja Paramēśvara Parambhaṭṭāraka Anantavarman of the Eastern Gaṅga family. It records the grant firstly of the village of Pāṭṭali (elsewhere called Pāḍali) situated in the territorial unit called Kṛishṇamaṭṭamba, in favour of the goddess Kañchipōṭṭi-bhaṭṭārikā, in order to provide for her offerings, etc., by Yuvarāja Rājēndravarman himself and secondly of Kuśasaṅkira-grāma in Dāpupañchālī and Arali-grāma in Jāmbōṭṭa-pañchālī in favour of the same deity by Rājēndravarman’s mother Lōka-mahādēvī. The primary object of the charter was to record the grant of Pāṭṭali-grāma since the order of the Yuvarāja was issued to the inhabitants of that village only. That Lōka-mahādēvī’s grant of the villages of Kuśasaṅkira and