South Indian Inscriptions

INCRIPTIONS OF THE DYNASTY OF THE HARISCHANDRA

(the representatives of) the town of merchants and they were enjoyed to look after the service and property of the god. The merchants were in return exempted from the payment of octroi duties and the obligation to provide for the boarding (of royal officers). The charter was written by Bharatasvāmin who was a resident of Kallivana.

The inscription is dated in the year 461, expressed both in words and numerical symbols in 1.54. No era is specified, but the mention of the Early Chālukya king Vikaramāditya (I) as the suzerain of Bhōgaśakti’s grand-father plainly indicates that it must be referred to the Kalachuri era. According to the epoch of 248-49 A.C., it would correspond to 709-10 A.C. if the year 461 was current, and to 710-11 A.C. if it was expired. It does not admit of verification for want of the necessary details.

The original royal order seems to have ended with 1.55, at the lower end of the inner side of the third plate. There is, however, a postscript added on the outer side of the same plate, which registers certain endowments of Tejavarmaraja. He was presumably a royal officer in charge of the country round Jayapura¹. He donated a pasture-land in the village Palittapațaka which was situated to the south of Jayapura. It was marked in four directions by boundary slabs with the figures of Durgadevi and cows sculptured on them². He also deposited a hundred rupakas with the guild of merchants in the town of Jayapura, the interest of which was to be spent in providing guggula (bdellium) for (the worship of) the god Bhogesvara every year.

The mention of Kŗishņarāja-rūpakas or the silver coins of Kŗishņarāja in the present record is interesting; for it shows that these coins of the Kalachuri king remained in circulation for more than a hundred and fifty years after Kŗishņarāja who probably flourished from circa 550 to 575 A.C.

There are several geographical names occurring in the present grant, but few of them can now be definitely identified. Purī which in the present record is coupled with Kōnkan, probably to distinguish the latter from the Southern Kōnkaņ, has not yet been satisfactorily located. Some identify it with Ghārāpurī, but the identification is opposed on the ground that the island is too small for a capital. Besides, it shows no traces of fortifications. Purī seems to have been situated not far from Sthānaka or Thānā, as the Śilāhāra king Aparājita retired to it when pressed by the enemy³. It may have been identical with Rājpurī in the former Janjira State, which is situated at the mouth of a large creek on the western coast.⁴ Gōparāshț;ra is mentioned in the Nirpan plates of Nāgavardhana⁵ and probably comprised the country round modern Igatpurī, as the village Balēgrāma situated in it has been shown to be identical with Belgaon Tarhālā, about 12 m. north-east of Igatpurī⁶. The genuineness of the Nirpan plates has rightly been questioned⁷, but that need not make the proposed identification doubtful. In fact the mention of Gōparāshtra as a territorial division, on which a tax was levied for the maintenance of __________________

¹He figures in the other Anjanēri plates (No. 32, below) of this very king as the executor of the charter.
² It may be noted that a pillar found at Sitābaldi near Nagpur (now deposited in the Central Museum, Nagpur) which contains an inscription recording the gift of a pasture-land for the grazing of cows (Ep. Ind., Vol. III, pp. 304 ff., has also the figures of some cows and calves in addition to those of the gods Brahmā and Vishņu sculptured on it. The pillars mentioned in the present inscription were probably of a similar type with the figure of Durgādēvi sculptured on them.
³ Ind. Ant., Vol. XL, p. 41.
⁴ P. I. H. C., (Fourth session), pp. 86 f.
⁵ Ind. Ant., Vol. IX, pp. 123 f.
⁶ E. H .D., p. 73.
⁷ Bom. Gaz., Vol. I, Part II, p. 358, n. 1