North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

UJJAIN COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF YASOVARMAN

... As stated above, it is the second of the two copper-plates bearing the whole inscription, the first of which has not so far been discovered. The present plate, which shows two holes at the top for rings to pass through and hold both the plates together, measures about 37.78 cms. broad by 27 cms. high and its edges were raised into rims to protect the writing. It weighs 2.07 kgms. It is inscribed on one side only and the writing measures about 37 cms. by 16 cms., excluding the letters containing the sign-manual and another line below, which is about 26 cms. long and 6 cms. high. Both these lines are beneath the main body of the inscription, separated from it by a narrow empty space. Excluding these two lines which contain letters of the size of about three times larger than those of the main inscription, there are fourteen lines of writing. The last of these lines is only about 8 cms. long, and begun in level with the upper border of a rectangle formed of double lines, it measures about 10.5 by 9.5 cms. It contains a representation of Garuḍa, kneeling, half front and half to the proper left, in human from, but with a pointed nose. The image holds three snakes in the left hand, with the right one raised up so as to strike at them.

...The average size of the letters of the main inscription is about .8 cms. They are well formed and carefully engraved, with the exception of a few here and there, an example of which is afforded by the writing of nyaṁ and vyaṁ, both in 1.6 and both almost alike. The inscription is completely legible, though the concluding portions of 11. 7-13 have slightly suffered from corrosion, as also noted by Kielhorn.

... The characters of the inscription are Nāgarī of the twelfth century A.C. to which it belongs. To note the peculiar features of the writing, however, we find the initial a almost resembling mra ; see asmat, 1.9 and adhi, 1.16 ; initial i is formed by a horizontal stroke (and not two dots), with its ends slightly curved below, in level with the top-strokes, and subscribed by a sign resembling the medial short u ; cf. iti in 11. 11 and 12 ; and the medial long ū is occasionally without the sharp curve at the end. e.g. in yūti, 1.3. Of the consonants, ch is occasionally distinguished by a triangular loop from v, as in gōchara, 1.3, but in most of the instances both these letters are alike in formation, as in grāmārdha=ścha and sva- in the same line ; t and n in their superscript from resemble almost a horizontal stroke slightly curved at the beginning, cf. tan= matvā, 1. 5 ; dh has developed a horn on its left limb and the verticals of dhā are joined by a mid-stroke, cf. vasudhā, 1.7 ; bh and h are sometimes written alike, as in bhū-hala, 1. 1, in which the slanting stroke of the second of these letters is missing ; and r shows at least three different forms ; e.g. in purushaiḥ, 1. 12, this letter appears as a vertical with a horizontal stroke attached to its middle on the left ; in purā, 1.8, it shows a wedge, and in Rāmabhadraḥ, 1. 10, a triangular loop.

... The language of the inscription is Sanskrit ; and, excepting five customary imprecatory verses in 11. 7-12, the existing portion of the grant is in prose. With reference to orthography, it shares the same peculiarities as to be seen in the inscriptions of the time and found in the region of Mālwā, viz. (1) the use of the sign of v to denote b also, e.g. in vrāhmaṇa, 1. 1 ; (2)the doubling of a consonant following r, as in parivarttēna, 1. 1; (3) the use of the pṛishṭha-mātrā in the case of a medial dipthong, cf. saptadaśak-ōpēta and hal-aikādaśa, both in 1.2; but we have a few exceptions in which the ūrdhva-mātrā is used, e.g. in dēvī, 1.1. where the very preceding word shows the pṛishṭha-mātrā, in mō ; (4) occasionally the wrong use of the sign of anusvāra, for example, at the end of a sentence or a verse, as in samupanētavyaṁ, 1.6 and in abhyanumōdanīyaṁ, 1.9;(5) the dropping of the visarga of vilōpyāḥ, the last word of a verse, in consideration of the following initial i in 1. 12. It may also be remarked here that throughout the record all the three sibilants are correctly used and the sign of avagraha appears only once in the whole record ; in the sandhi of a final ā with an initial a in 1.6.

...The inscription is one of the Mahārāja, the illustrious Yaśōvarmadēva, whose pedigree must have been mentioned in the now missing portion of the preceding lines of the charter and who, from the fact that the plate was found at Ujjain and belongs to the time, is obviously no other than the son of the Paramāra Naravarman, whose last date is known from an inscription discovered at the same place to be the (Vikrama)year 1190. The object of the inscription is to record the grant of the village of Laghu-Vaiṅgaṇapadra [1] and a half of the village of
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[1]As the text reads in 1.2, the gift village was saṁvadha, i.e. Saṁbaddha or connected with land measuring eleven halas together with seventeen nivarttanas. Both these are technical terms, the first used to denote a plot of land worth being cultivated in a season by a pair of bullocks, and the second meaning 20 rods, one rod (daṇḍa) being equal to 96 parvas or 198 feet. See above, p. 57, n. 3.

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