North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

(V.13) (He belonged to) the śākhā called Vājasanēya and had emigrated from the village Ṭakārī. Of him, who was like Brahmā, there was a son named Dēvaśarman.

(V.14) To him three sons were born. Of them the eldest was Sīlaṇa, his younger brother was Pīthana and thereafter was (born) Lashaṇu.

(Vv.15-16) To this Brāhmaṇa, the illustrious Sīlaṇa, this villlage Avalā, well- known in the Madhya-maṇḍala together with all taxes was granted by the king with (an offering of ) sesamum, knśa, water and rice-grains, after washing his feet with devotion on (the occasion of) a lunar eclipse in (the month of ) Chaitra.
(Here follow four benedictive and imprecatory verses.)

(V. 21) Here lived the wise and illustrious Kīrtidhara, the moon who made the night-lotus of the Vāstavya family bloom (and) who owned the village Jaḍēra. His beloved son, (known) as the illustrious Vatsarāja, wrote (on these plates of) copper.

Engraved by Lakshmīdhara. The year 900.
Seal
The King, the illustrious Pṛithvīdēva.

No. 92; PLATE LXXV
GHOTIA PLATES OF PRITHVIDEVA II: (KALACHURI) YEAR 1000 (?) (900)

THESE copper-plates were found by a cultivator in his field at Ghōṭiā, a village 10 miles due south of Balōdā Bazār, the head-quarters of a tahsil of the same name in the Raipur District of Madhya Pradesh. They were brought to notice by Rai Bahadur Hiralal who discussed their contents in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. LIV, pp. 41 ff. His article was accompanied by negative facsimiles of the plates and the seal. The plates are now deposited in the Central Museum, Nagpur.

The copper-plates, two in number, are in a state of excellent preservation, each measuring 13½” broad and 8½” high. They were held together by a ring passing through a hole, .6’ in diameter, at the top of each plate The central portion of the ring is flattened into a circular seal, which contains a representation of the goddess Lakshmī, sitting cross-legged, with an elephant on either side pouring water over her head. Below is the legend Rāja-śrīmat-Pṛithvīdēva in two lines. The weight of the plates together with the ring is 294 tolas.

The characters are Nāgarī. As shown below, the present record is probably a very incorrect copy of a genuine charter, made by an ignorant scribe who could not read the original properly. He has left lacunæ in several places, where he could not clearly see the letters on the original plates, which may have been either damaged by rust or choked up with dust. We find him writing d for v, g for m, r for n, j for kṛi, v for r, h for bh and so forth. But even in this extremely incorrect copy we can notice some palæographic peculiarities of the original he copied from; e.g., the original seems to have had b denoted by its proper sign in babhūva, 1. 11..

The language is Sanskrit. Except for the opening obeisance to Brahman and the particulars about the engraver and the date at the end, the inscription is metrically composed throughout. It consists of 26 verses, all of which are numbered. The first eleven verses in the eulogistic portion occur in the Amōdā plates (first set) of Pṛithvīdēva II. The twelfth verse, which is in praise of Pṛithvīdēva II, occurs also in the Daikōni plates of the same king. Besides, four benedictive and imprecatory verses and a verse about the