North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

No. 99 ; PLATE LXXXI
AMODA PLATES OF JAJALLADEVA II : (KALACHURI) YEAR 91[9]

THIS set of two copper-plates was discovered together with three others^¹ while digging for the foundation of a temple in May 1924 at Amōdā, 10 miles south-east of Jānjgir, the head-quarters of a tahsil of the same name in the Bilaspur District of Madhya Pradesh. The record on them has been edited before with lithographs, but without a translation, by Rai Bahadur Dr. Hiralal in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XIX, pp. 209 ff. It is edited here from the original plated which are preserved in the Central Museum, Nagpur.

(V. 34) When he, the treasure of excellences, started for heaven, beauty vanished, life departed, charity left for (distant) regions, prowess knew no judicious habitation, playful actions stayed far away, merits became religious mendicants—even stones cried and (even) the heart of adamant broke through grief !

The plates are substantial, measuring from 12.6" to 12.9" broad and 9.8" high and weighing about 143 tolas. They are inscribed on one side only. Their ends were slightly raised to serve as rims for the protection of the writing. The inscription has, however, suffered considerably by corrosion, and several letters especially in the last six lines have been wholly or partially damaged. Each plate has at the top a hole, .4" in diameter, for the ring which connected it with the other plate of the set, but neither the ring nor the seal, which it may have carried, has been found. There are 37 lines in all, of which 18 are incised on the first plate and the remaining 19 on the second. The size of the letters varies from .4" to .2".

The characters are Nāgarī. Attention may be drawn to the two forms of the initial i in iti, 1.9, and iva, 1.23, those of dh in dharmmaḥ 1.4 and dhṛitēr=, 1.25 and of r in kairavaiḥ, 1.21 and Sagar-ādi-, 1.30. The sign of avagraha is employed in some places to indicate the merging of a not only into ē and ō, but also into ā; see, e.g., =tad-anvayē- 'bhūd=, 1.3 and mahādhanēnā-‘ jani, 1.25. The language is Sanskrit. Except for ōṁ namō Vrahmaṇē in the beginning and the particulars of the date and the names of the donees at the end, the record is metrically composed throughout. There are 26 complete verses, all of which are numbered. Besides these, there is nearly a quarter of a verse which is left incomplete in line 18. The first eleven verses are copied from the earlier charters of the dynasty such as the two sets of plates of Pṛithvīdēva II, discovered at Amōdā itself. The present inscription is very carelessly written of incised, and abounds in grammatical and orthographical mistakes. As regards orthographical peculiarities, we may notice that the sign for v is used to denote b except in the case of the perfect forms of bhū; see, e.g., babhūvar=, 1.6 and babhūva, 1.13; but contrast nṛipatir=vvabhūva, 1.29; the dental s and the palatal ś have been confused ; see e.g., sirō, 1.16 and śasāṁk-, 1.20; j is written for y in -jaśāḥ, 1.5 and n for ṇ in punya-, 11.25 and 26, pratigrihnāti, 1.31, etc.

The inscription is one of Jājalladēva II of the Kalachuri Dynasty of Ratanpur. The object of it is to record the grant, by Jājalladēva, of the village Bundērā to two Brāhmaṇas.

The genealogy of the donor Jājalladēva II is traced from the moon down to his father Pṛithvīdēva II as in the latter’s Amōdā plates (two sets). As stated before, the verses in the genealogical portion have been copied from the earlier grants; they, therefore, furnish no additional historical information. Verse 12 which refers to Jājalladēva II is, of course, new, but the description in it is wholly conventional.

The present grant was made by way of thanksgiving after the donor had luckily escaped from a great calamity. Verse 19 states that the king Jājalladēva II was caught by the large alligator Thīrū. He escaped with great difficulty, and regaining his kingdom,
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¹ Viⱬ. The Amōdā plates of Pṛithvīdēva I, dated K.831 (No. 76, above) and the two sets of the Amōdā plates of Pṛithvīdēva II, dated K.900 and 905 (Nos. 91 and 94, above).