South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

edges on three sides, while the right margin is left plain, This rim is about 3/16″ broad and is also as much in thickness, The plates are numbered in serial order on their inner sides in the breadth of this rim. They have ring holes about ¾″ in diameter near their left margin but the ring which must have passed through them and held them together is now missing. The plates weigh 510 tolas. In the right margin of the 2nd and 4th plates there is a slight knob-like projection, the purpose of which is not clear.”

The inscription on the plates is neatly executed and is in a good state of preservation. The letters, almost all of which attained their modern forms by the date of this records, are deeply inscribed and are very beautiful. Very rarely do we come across such specimen of handsome Telugu writing in the grants issued in the early post-Kākatīya period. The script is Telugu which was current in the first half of the fourteenth century A. D. in the Āndhra country and is akin to that found in the Dōnepūṇḍi grant of Nāmaya-nāyaka.^[1]

No distinction is made between the vowels short and long e (ll. 118, 125 and 126), the letters bā and bhā, ḍ and ḍh, and the secondary forms of the vowels e and ē and o and ō. The sign for the aspirate, seen in the grant in a few cases in ḍha, pha and bha, resembles a small inverted crescent attached below the right arm of the letter. It definitely came into use by the first quarter of the thirteenth century. It can clearly be seen in ratna-garbhāyāḥ (1.8), ºbhidā vibhinnairº, and vibhaktē (1. 11), ºlābhē (1. 33), ºphalaiḥ (1.60), ºprauḍha (1. 117), etc. This, however, is not always used uniformly. The remaining aspirated letters have quite distinct forms to differentiate them from their unaspirated counterparts. Superscript r, resembling the modern avagraha in a diagonal position, is attached at the right top of the letter.

The final forms of t and n occur frequently, as in 11. 30, 32 and 33. In almost all cases the anusvāra has taken the place of final m. The only letters in the record that differ from those of the present day are ṭ, d, dh, ś and ḷ. The only difference between ṭ and d lies in the top stroke. The letter d exactly resembles ḍ of the present day, but without the loop inside in the right arm and dh resembles the present day d. N can easily be identified even though it differs slightly from its present form. Among orthographical peculiarities, a superfluous anusvāra is sometimes inserted before double n, or before n followed by a consonant as in ºruṁnnata (1.61), Puṁnny=ādhyāpaka (1.132), īśāṁnyāº (1.151, 155) ; dhdh is written instead of ddh if the letter dh is doubled after r (11. 70, 140, 141, and 144) ; the consonants, g, ch, j, ṇ, t and d sometimes and y invariably are doubled after r ; the palatal ś is often used in the names of the donees for the dental s as in Śiddhaya (1.110). Śiṁgaya (1. 117) and so on.

The language of the inscription is Sanskrit with the exception of the passage in Telugu describing the boundaries of the village granted. The language, excepting the passage describing the boundaries, is chaste and is entirely in verse. This is a beautiful inscriptional kāvya in Sanskrit, replete with alaṁkāras, the like of which is rarely seen in the grants of the medieval period Unfortunately the name of the composer is not given. Another noteworthy feature of this grant is the absence in it of the usual imprecatory verses that are generally found at the close of the inscriptions. The inscription ends with the signature of the donor which reads as Prōlā-nēni vrālu (the signature of Prōlā-nēḍu).

The passage describing the boundaries is shabbily inscribed, quite in contrast with the preceding Sanskrit part. The Telugu forms kāli and kāluva are both used to denote a canal ; of these the former form has gone out of use now. Kroppuṁ-gāluva (1. 147) means a canal that was dug. This is a compound of krochchu and kāluva, of which the former is a verbal adjective. Krochchu is the root. It means’ to make a low depression, to dig with an iron crow-bar or other instru-

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^[1] Above, Vol. IV, pp. 356 ff.