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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
INCRIPTIONS OF THE SENDRAKAS
No. 25; PLATE XVIII THESE plates were discovered in 1937 at Kāsārē, a village thirty-four miles almost due west of Dhulia in West Khandesh, Bombay State. They are now deposited in the Bhārata Itihāsa Samśōdhaka Maņdala, Poona. I edit the inscription here from excellent photographs kindly supplied by the Secretary of the Maņdala.1 They are two copper-plates measuring 7.7" in length and 5.5" in breadth. At the top of each there is a roundish hole about .4" in diameter for two rings which hold them together. One of them carries a conical seal with a circular face measuring 1.5" in diameter, which has the legend Śrī-Allaśakti. The weight of the plates together with the rings and the seal is 108 tolas. The record consists of thirty-three lines, of which fourteen and fifteen are incised on the inner sides of the first and the second plate respectively, and the remaining four on the outer side of the first plate turned upside down. The writing is in a state of good preservation almost throughout. The size of the letters varies from .1" to .2".
The characters are of the western variety of the southern alphabets, and resemble those used in the grants of the Early Gurjaras. The technical execution is very bad. The letters are of uneven size and are carelessly formed; those on the outer side of the first plate are more than double the average size of the rest. Besides, the aksharas originally engraved in ll.20 and 21 were subsequently beaten in, and others much larger in size incised over them. The earlier aksharas have, however, been left over through inadver- tence between ll.19 and 20. Some more can be read with patience and perseverance here and there from the traces left behind. It is not possible to say definitely when the record was thus tampered with, or altered by authority; but the form of the letters subsequently engraved indicates that the alteration must have been made in the same period, to which the rest of the inscription can be referred on palæographic grounds.2 As regards individual letters, we may notice that the writer has confounded v and b in some places, see prabhabati, 1.6, and bhagabatō, 1.27. The cursive subscript m occurs in brāmaņa- and -brahmachāri-, both in 1.22. Both the forms of l have been used,––the northern with a shortened right limb as in lōkānām, and lōkapālah, both in 1.9, and the southern with the right limb bent to the left as in prithivīvallabha and kuśalī, both in 1.18. A peculiar form of dh occurs in Āshādha, 1.32. The sign for the jihvāmūlīya is used in 11.8 and 18, and that for the upadhmānīya in 11.10, 17 and 27. The symbols for the numbers 400 and 4 occur in l.31. The language is Sanskrit. Except for three verses embedded in the eulogistic 1Since this article was written, the plates have been published by Mr. G. H. Khare in the
Sources of the Mediaval History of the Deccan, Vol. II, pp. 66 f.
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