South Indian Inscriptions

MISCELLANEOUS

here and there to denote medial diphthongs. The language is Sanskrit. Except for three verses in the beginning, the inscription is in prose throughout. The record is very carelessly written especially in lines 18-22. The writer had evidently a very imperfect knowledge of Sanskrit. As shown below, this is a private document. Still the writer states that it was issued from a camp and that the camp was situated at some auspicious place ! It is clear that he has blindly copied the introductory part of the record from some royal charter. The orthography shows the usual peculiarities such as the use of v for b , of the dental for the palatal sibilant and vice versa.

The inscription refers itself to the reign of the king Trailōkyamalla who, as shown below, is identical with the Chandēlla king Trailōkyavarman. The object of it is to record the mortgage (vitta-bandha) of a certain village by the Śaiva ascetic Śāntaśiva in favour of one Rānaka Dharēka.

The inscription opens with an obeisance to Śiva and Ganapati. It has then three verses in praise of Krishna, Śūlapāni (Śiva) and Sarasvatī.¹ It next proceeds to state that during the reign of the illustrious Trailōkyamalladēva, the lord of Kānyakubja, who meditated on the feet of Vāmadēva, had assumed titles commencing with Paramabhattāraka (i.e., Paramabhattāraka, Maharājādhirāja and Paramēśvara), and had attained supremacy over the lord of horses, the lord of elephants and the lord of men,² the Śaiva ascetic Śāntaśiva, the son of the Rājaguru Vimalaśiva, conveyed by way of mortgage (vittabandha) at Dhōvahattapattana in the Dhanavāhi pattalā, the village of Alaura, to the Rāņaka Dharēka, the son of Sēvarāja, who was himself the son of the Ţhakkura Rāsala. The deed of mortgage was actually executed by Nādaśiva, a younger son of Vimalaśiva, with the authority of his elder brother Śāntaśiva. Some persons are cited as witnesses at the end of the record. The record was written by the Paņditas Viśvēśvara and Gańgādhara. It was engraved by Sīruka. There are no benedictive and imprecatory verses at the end of the record, as it is not a land-grant.³

Trailōkyamalla, during whose reign the deed was executed, is evidently identical with Trailōkyavarman (or Trailōkyamalla), mentioned in the Rewa plates of V. 1297 and 1298 of his feudatories Kumārapāla and Harirāja.⁴ He, therefore, belonged to the Chandēlla dynasty. Still the same epithets are here applied to him as were applied to his predecessor Vijayasimha of the Kalachuri dynasty, evidently through the ignorance of the writer, who seems to have drawn upon some Kalachuri record for the description of the Chandēlla king.⁵

They are two copper-plates measuring 1' 3.2'' broad and 10½'' high. They were discovered in 1926 in the village of Dhurēti,10 about 6 miles south-east of Rewa by a cultivator while ploughing his field. They have raised rims. When discovered they were apparently held together by a ring, but it had already been cut when Dr. Chakravarti examined the charter. This ring has a seal measuring 6¾''x4½''attached to it, bearing in relief the figure of Lakshmī with an elephant on either side pouring water over her head, and the legend Srīmat-Trailōkyamalla in one line below it. The weight of the plates together with the seal is 419 tolas. The record consists of 22 lines, of which eleven are inscribed on the inner side of each plate. The writing is in a state of perfect preservation throughout. The average size of the letter is .⁵''.

Among the officers of Trailokyamalla mentioned in the present inscription, there is one who deserves special notice6. This is the Mahamahattaka, Mantrin and Mandalika Malayasimha. He is evidently identical with the Mahamandalika Malayasimha mentioned in the Rewa stone inscription of Vijayasimha. As shown below, the present inscription was incised in K. 963, i.e., within two or three years of the aforementioned inscription of Vijayasimha. During this short interval the rule of the Kalachuris in the Rewa
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¹ The verse in praise of Sarasvatī occurs in the Kāvyādarśa (I, I) of Daņdin.
² In line 12 the king is called tri-śati-rājy-ādhipati, ‘the lord of three hundred kingdoms.’
³ For a similar instance, see Anjaneri plates (Second Set), of Bhōgaśakti, No. 32, above.
⁴ Ind. Ant. Vol. XVII, pp. 232 and 236.
⁵ It may, however, be noted that Trailōkyavarman is called here Kānyakubjādhipati, not Trikalińgābhipati. The latter epithet is applied to him in the Rewa plates of Kumārapāla, dated V. 1297 mentioned above.
⁶ Another officer, the Kōttapāla Vāhada may be identical with Vāhadavarman, the son of Śalakshana- varman, the feudatory chief of Karkarēdī, Ind. Ant., Vol. XVII, p. 236. The Sāndhivigrabika Haripāla may be identical with the Mahāmantrin of the same name mentioned in No. 70, 1.9.