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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA No. 20.─ TWO GRANTS OF DHRUVASENA II. BY PROFESSOR E. HULTZSCH, PH.D. ; HALLE (SAALE). These two sets of copper-plates belong to the Rutlam Darbar and were lent to Messrs. Marshall and Cousens in December 1902 by the Dewan of the Rutlam State in Central India. Mr. Marshall has communicated to me a letter of the Dewan of Rutlam, from which it appears that the plates had been found in 1891 at Nôgâwâ,[1] a village 10 miles north of Rutlam, while a well near a Brâhmaṇ’s house was being repaired. Each set consists of two copper-plates. To both sets is affixed a single seal, whose ring was found broken or cut, and of which it cannot be said to which set it belonged originally. The seal is elliptical, measures about 2¼″ by 2″ in diameter, and bears, on a countersunk surface, in relief, a bull couchant which faces the proper right, and below the bull, the legend Śrî-Bhaṭakkaḥ. In the Annual Report of the Archæological Survey of India for 1902-03, p. 232 ff., I have already published the second of the two grants (B.), with facsimile. In now editing the first (A.), I reprint the text of the second as well, because the grant portions of both are closely connected and throw light on each other.
A.─ NOGAWA PLATES OF [GUPTA-]SAMVAT 320. This inscription is edited from two sets of ink-impressions prepared by Mr. Cousens in 1905, and from rubbings supplied by Mr. Marshall in the same year. It is engraved on two copper-plates which bear writing only on their inner side. There are two ring holes at the bottom of the inscribed side of the first plate, and two corresponding ones at the top of that of the second plate. To judge from the impressions, each of the two plates measures about 9 inches in height and about 11¼″ in breadth. The alphabet resembles that of other Maitraka inscriptions of the same period. The jihvâmûlîya occurs once (l. 37), and the upadhmânîya also once (l. 38). The numerical symbols for 300, 20 and 5 are used in the date portion (l. 52). The secondary form of â is very often omitted. The anusvâra is represented by guttural ṅ before ś and h[2] (ll. 3, 5, 22, 45, 48), and by dental n before s in three cases (ll. 14, 28, 32), while the anusvâra is employed in three others (saṁsakta, ll. 1, 5, and saṁskâra, l. 34). The language is Sanskṛit. Almost the whole of the inscription is in prose ; but three of the customary verses are quoted in ll. 49-51. The rules of Sandhi are often disregarded─ even in compound words.[3] The inscription records a grant of land to two Brâhmaṇas by the Maitraka king Dhruvasêna (II.), who issued this edict from (his capital) Valabhi (l. 1). His genealogy is described in the same words as in his grant of Saṁvat 310[4] and has been translated by me elsewhere.[5] The grant portion runs as follows :─ (L. 36.) ‘ The fervent worshipper of Mahêśvara (Śiva), the glorious Dhruvasêna (II.) whose second name was Bâlâditya, being in good health, issue (the following) command to all according as they are concerned :’─
(L. 37.) “ Be it known to you that, for the increase of the spiritual merit of (My) mother
and father, I have given in Mâlavaka, in the said district (bhukti), at the eastern boundary of
[1] Dr. Fleet kindly informs me that this village is entered as ‘ Naugama ’ on the Indian Atlas sheet No. 36,
N. E. (1895).
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