North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

No. 5; No PLATE
UJJAIN GRANT OF VĀKPATIRĀJADĒVA
[ Vikrama ] Year 1036

...THE copper-plates which bear the subjoined inscription are stated to have been discovered some time before the middle of the nineteenth century A.C., in a ruin in the vicinity of UJJAIN, the Ujjayinī of a hoary antiquity, and found their way to the Central India Agency, which then exited at Indore, in Madhya Pradesh. R.N.C. Hamilton, who was then the Agent to the Governor-General and in charge of the Agency, sent a facsimile of the record to the Asiatic Society, Calcutta ; and from the same, the late Dr. Rajendralal Mitra, the librarian of the Society, edited the inscription in its Journal, Volume XIX (for 1850), pp. 475, publishing the text in Nāgarī (pp. 477-78), with its translation in English (pp. 478-80) and a preliminary note (pp 475-77). In the meanwhile the plates sailed off and were again noticed in the India Office, London, where they are now preserved. In 1885 the document was systematically edited by Kielhorn, with text in Nāgarī and a fresh translation, in the Indian Antiquary, Volume XIV (1885), pp. 159 ff., from a photo-lithograph, supplied to him by J.F. Fleet, one of the editors of the Journal. But neither Mitra’s nor Kielhorn’s article is illustrated, and, being unable to procure the impressions of the inscription, I edit it here from the latter’s reading of the text.

...The set consists of two copper plates, each measuring about 32.38 cms. broad by 24.13 cms. high. The edges of them are fashioned thicker into rims to protect the writing, which is well preserved. The bottom of the first and the top of the second plate has two ring-holes for holding the plates together, but from Kielhorn’s writing it appears that only one of the rings could then be obtained. He describes it to be a “plain copper-ring, about ⅜” (.9 cm.) thick and 2¼” (5.71 cms.) in diameter ; it has been cut before the grant came under notice for photolithograph.” As he has also stated, the total weight of the plates and the ring is 6 lbs. 10 oz., i.e., about 3 kilograms.

...The grant is written in the Nāgarī script current in the tenth century A.C. The language is Sanskrit ; and, excepting two benedictory and five imprecatory stanzas at the beginning and the end, respectively, the record is in prose. Unlike the preceding inscription, it shows the
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[1] This daṇḍa appears to have been inserted subsequently.
[2] Before this akshara a pṛishṭha-mātrā has been wrongly engraved.
[3] That is. संवत्.
[4] Read स्वयमाज्ञा । दापकश्चात्त्र. The first expression means the order of (the king) himself ; and the second is in the sense of dūtaka, See Ep. Ind., Vol. XIX. p. 178, n. 1.

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