North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

Though the names of the writer and the engraver tally, it is quite clear that these are not the original plates issued by Pṛithvīdēva II; for the two grants of Pṛithvīdēva II, which were written by Vatsarāja, show that he was a fairly careful writer and left no lacunæ in his writing. R.B. Hiralal took the present plates to be spurious. He thought that it was the donee who made use of his great learning in committing the forgery about a hundred years after the death of Pṛithvīdēva II, i.e., about the middle of the 13th cen. A.C. To give the record the sanctity of great antiquity, he antedated the grant by 300 years and intended to refer the date to the Vikrama era which was prevalent at the time. This view of R.B. Hiralal does not, however, appear to be convincing; for whoever may have forged the grant, he would naturally have taken care to see that it contained no lacunæ or glaring mistakes, in order that it should pass as a genuine record. That the present grant contains too many lacunæ and mistakes has been shown above. It may again be noted that some of these mistakes occur in the verses descriptive of the donee and the occasion of the grant, where they would be least expected in a forged record. It seems, therefore, that the present inscription was copied from the original genuine plates long after the time of Pṛithvīdēva II when some letters on the original plates were damaged by rust or were rendered illegible by dust. We have two more instance of such incorrect and absolutely unreliable copies of old inscriptions made by later writers who could not decipher the originals correctly.^¹The date of the present plates, if interpreted as shown above, does not appear to be improbable.

As for the localities mentioned in the present grant, Sā[ma]nta-maṇḍala appears to have comprised the outlying districts of the kingdom. Gōṭhadā, if this is the correct name of the donated village, may be identical with Ghōṭiā where the present plates were found.

¹ See below, pp. 501-2 and 519.
² From the original plates.
³ Expressed by a symbol.
⁴ Read ज्योति-.
⁵ Metre: Anusbṭubh.
⁶ Read पुत्रो.
⁷ Read - भूद्‍भुवि कार्तवीर्यः. Metre: Upajāti.
⁸ Read तद्धंशग्रभवा नरेन्द्रपतयः.
⁹ Read हेहयास्तेषामन्वयभूषणं
¹⁰ Read नत्नः
¹¹ Read धर्म्मध्यानधनानुसंचितयसाः दाश्‍वत्सतां सौक्यकृत्‌.
¹² Read समभवच्छीमानसो कोक्‍कलः. Metre: Śārdūlavikrīḍita.