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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
INCRIPTIONS OF THE SENDRAKAS NO. 26 ; PLATE XIX THE plates were found in 1881 together with several others2 by a labourer of Surat, ‘who was engaged in excavating the pro tempore kitchens for a large wedding party at Bagumrā3 (Zilla Balesar) in the Gaekwad’s territory.’4 They were edited by Dr. G. Bühler first in Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie, Band CXIV, pp. 169 ff. and subsequently with some emendations and a translation accompanied by excellent lithographs in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XVIII, pp. 265 ff. I edit the inscription here from the lithographs as well as from fresh ink impressions kindly supplied by the authorities of the British Museum. âThe grant is engraved on two copper-plates,––now in the British Museum,–– each measuring about 7⅞" by 5½". The rims are raised. Two holes on the lower broad side of the first plate and the upper one of the second, show that they were held together by two rings which have been lost. Only the inner sides of the plates have been inscribed; the first has nineteen, the second twenty lines. The technical execution is very bad. The letters are often badly formed, of unequal size and sometimes stand so close together that they run into each other. The upper part of the first plate and the lower one of the second have considerably suffered by oxidisationâ5.
The characters belong to the western variety of the southern alphabets, and resemble
those used in the inscriptions of the Early Gurjaras. Owing to the carelessness of the
writer or the engraver, the same letter appears in varying forms in different places. Contrast, e.g., the form of d in –dāna–, 1.5 with that –dākshinya–, 11.5-6; of t in praņat-, 1.4 with
that in –gatih, 1.13; of bh in –vallabha–, 1. 15 with that in –gabhīrō-, 1. 12; of m in –dama–, 1. 5,
–Nikumbh-, 1.15 and maya, 1. 18 with the cursive one in –Lakshmī-, 1. 9, Brāhmaņ-, 1. 17
etc.; of n in -kālīnah, 1. 22 with that in gagana-, 1. 1. It is noteworthy that t shows a
vertical stroke at the top in –patal-, 1. 30, Vindhy-ātavī-, 1. 33 etc.; y appears in a
transitional form without a hook in its left limb, while l shows both the northern
form as in –Lakshmī-, 1. 9, -mamdal-, 1. 7, –bala–, 1. 8, and the southern one as in kal-paluma–, 11. 7-8, -pālana-, 1.10. The language is Sanskrit, and except for a verse in
praise of the sun in the beginning and the usual benedictive and imprecatory stanzas at the
end, the record is in prose throughout. The ignorance of the person who drafted it
is disclosed by the innumerable mistakes of grammar which disfigure the record from the
beginning to the end. He uses, for instance, -amala-yaśasah, 1.7 as the nominative of
amala-yaśas instead of the correct form amala-yaśāh, seems to be ignorant of the rule that
the words connected by iva must be in the same case, for he writes Kalpaldrumam=iva. . .
jan-ōpabhujyamāna-vibhavō, 11. 7-8, Janārddanam-iva. . . rājya[h*], 11. 8-9, and employs wrong
declensional forms like Brāhmaņ-ōttarām for Brāhmāņ-ōttarān, 1. 17, -dhikarik-ādīm for –dhi–
kārik-adīn, 1.18 etc., and incorrect compounds like rajahśri for rājyaśrī, 1.29, apahritam- 1Bühler gives the royal name as Nikumbhallaśakti, but as shown above, (p. 112), Nikumbha
was only a biruda and the proper name was Allaśakti. A grant of the same king recently discovered
in Khandesh calls him Nikumbhāllaśakti, (N. I. A., Vol. I, p. 747).
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