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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
No. 22.- MADHUBAN PLATE OF HARSHA ;
THE YEAR 25.
BY. F. KIELHORN, PH.D., D. LITT., LL.D., C.I.E. ; GÃTTINGEN.
This plate was discovered, in January 1888, in a field near the village of Madhuban[2] in the
pargaṇa Nathûpûr of the tahsîl Sagrî, in the Azamgarh distrcit of the Benares division of the
United Provinces, and is now in the Provincial Museum of Lucknow. The inscription which
it contains has been already edited, by the late Professor Bühler,[3] in Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 67 ff.
As it is desirable to issue a facsimile of the plate, I re-edit the inscription from impressions
that were furnished to Dr. Hultzsch by the late Mr. E. W. Smith.
This is a single copper-plate, about 1’ 8” broad by 1’ ¾” high, and inscribed on one side
only. Judging from the impressions, a seal was soldered on to the middle of the proper right
side of the plate, just as is the case with the Banskhêra plate of Harsha and the three plates of
the Mahârâjas of Mahôdaya,[4] but it must have got detached from the plate[5] and has not been
discovered. In the upper part and on the proper left side the plate has suffered somewhat from
corrosion, but the writing throughout is so deeply engraved that on the back of the impressions
every letter of the 18 lines which the plate contains may be read with absolute certainly. The
size of the letters is about 5/16”. The characters belong to the north-western class of alphabets ;[6] in general, they closely resemble those given (from the Lakkhâ Maṇḍal inscription, North. Inscr. No. 600) in columns xv. and xvi. of Table IV, of Professor Bülher’s Ind. Palæographie. Of
initial vowels the text only contains a (e.g. in anayôr=, l. 15) ; i (e.g. in iva, l. 6), the form of
which, employed here, in Professor Bülher’s Table occurs only in much later inscriptions ; u (in
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[1] The words used of Kumudvatî are selected with reference to the original meaning of that name. Kumudvatî is likened to a group of lotuses (kumudvatî) growing in a pond (sarasaḥ prarûḍhâ), which open their blossoms
(vikasvar-âṅgî) when touched by the beams (kara-sparśam avâpya) of the moon. The marriage of Kuśa and
Kumudvatî, the sister of the serpent Kumuda, is told in the sixteenth sarga of the Raghuvaṁśa.
[2] According to Dr. Führer, Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions in the N.- W. Provinces and Oudh,
p. 189, where the above information is given, the village of Madhuban is 32 miles north-west of Azamgarh ; but I
have not found the name in the Indica Atlas, sheet No. 103.
[3] Some of the errors which Prof. Bühler’s text contains were corrected by him, when editing the Banskhêra
plate of Harsha, above, Vol. IV. p. 208 ff.
[4] See above, Vol. IV. p. 208, and Vol. V. p. 208.
[5] Compare the Sônpat seal of Harshavardhana, Gupta Inscr. p. 231, and Plate.
[6] The apparently more antique manner in which essentially the same alphabet was written in Eastern India
may be seen from the plates of the time of Śaśâṅkarâja (above, Vol. VI. p. 144, Plate) which are only about ten
years older than this Madhuban plate.
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