North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

AMODA PLATES (FIRST SET) OF PRITHVIDEVA II : YEAR 900

in the month of Chaitra. The genealogy of the donee is given in verses 12-14. There was a Brāhamaṇa named Mihirasvāmin of the Vājasanēya śākhā and the Chandrātrēya gōtra with the three pravaras Chandra, Atri and Sāvana.^¹ His son Dēvaśarman, who emigrated from the village Ṭakārī, had three sons, Sīlaṇa, Pīthana and Lashaṇū. Sīlaṇa, the eldest of them, was the donee of the present grant.

The charter was written on the plates by the illustrious Vatsarāja, the son of the illustrious Kīrtidhara of the Vāstavya family. It was engraved by Lakshmī- dhara.

The inscription is dated in the year 900 (expressed in decimal figures only) of an unspecified era. The date must, of course, be referred to the Kalachuri era. It corresponds, for the expired Kalachuri year 900, to 1148-49 A.C. During this period there was a lunar eclipse on the full-moon day of Chaitra, the corresponding Christian data being Friday, the 25th March 1149 A.C.

As for the geographical names occurring in this inscription, the Madhya- maṇḍala was taken by R.B. Hiralal to correspond to 'the tract owning the capital of the king' The Amōdā plates of Pṛithvīdēva I show, however, that the latter was included in the Apara (Western) maṇḍala.^²The village should rather be looked for in the vicinity of Amōdā where the present plates were found. In the reign of the Pṛithvīdēva II, the Kalachuri rule extended to Sāraṅgaḍh in the east.^³ The territory roughly corresponding to the Jānjgir tahsil must, therefore, have been included in the Madhya maṇḍala. As remarked by R.B. Hiralal, Avalā is a corruption of the Sanskrit āmalaka, which is the name of the tree emblic myrobalan. There are several villages in the Jānjgir tahsil named after this tree such as Aorai Kala, Aori Khurd, Aoradi, etc. Of these, the nearest to Amōdā is Aoradi which lies only 4 miles to the east. Ṭakārī, from which the donee's father had emigrated, is probably identical with Ṭakkārikā, Ṭakkarikā, Takkāri or Tarkāri, mentioned in several grants^⁴ as the original home of Brāhmaṇa donees. In one of them it is said to be situated in the Madhyadēśa. There is a village of that name, 16 m. north-west of Gayā.^⁵ Jaḍēra is obviously identical with Jaṇḍēra mentioned in the Sarkhō plates of Ratnadēva II, which has been already identified^⁶ with Jōndrā on the Seonath river, just outside the south-west limit of the Jānjgir tahsil
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¹This gōtra is not included in the Gōtrapravaranibandhakadamba. Sāvana is probably a mistake for Pāvana, fire . Atri was born from fire.
² See above, p. 404.
³ Jagapāla, a feudatory of Pṛithvīdēva II, conquered Saraharāgaḍha which is probably identical with Sāraṅgaḍh. See above , p. 455.
⁴ See, e. g., the Kaṭak plates of Mahābhavagupta and Mahāśivagupta, Ep. Ind., Vol. III, p. 348 and p. 353 respectively; the Kalas-Budrukh plates of Bhillama III, Ind. Ant., Vol. XVII, p.. 121; the Banda District plate of Madanavarmadēva, ibid., Vol. XVI, p. 208 (where Ḍhakāri is a mislection for Ṭakāri); the Nanyaura plates of Dēvavarmadēva (where also the reading should be Ṭakārī), ibid., Vol. XVI, p. 205; the Māndhātā plates of Dēvapāla and Jayavarman, Ep. Ind., Vol. IX, pp. 103 ff; the Kōḷagallu inscription of Khōṭṭiga, ., Vol. Xxi, p. 265; the Salimpur stone inscription of Jayapāladēva, ibid., Vol. XIII, p. 290, etc. In the third inscription referred to above, the place is called bhaṭṭa-grāma and is described as situated in the Madhyadēśa, while in the last it is said to have been included in Śrāvastī. Perhaps there were more than one place of that name, as there was a Śrāvastī in Bengal also. See Kāmarūpaśāsanāvali, p. 155. See also Ind. Ant., Vol. XLVIII, pp. 208 ff; Vol. LX, pp. 14 ff. Ṭakkārikā was the original home of the Vāstavya family of the Kāyasthas also. See Ep. Ind., Vol. I, p. 333.
⁵ Ep. Ind., Vol. XXI, p. 263. ⁶ Above, p. 425.