North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

GAONRĪ COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF VĀKPATIRĀJADĒVA (I)

sporadic doubling of a consonant following r, e.g. in kārttikyāṁ, 1. 9 ; (3) the occasional use of the dental sibilant for the palatal, as in pārāsara 1. 21, and vice versa ; see śādhu (for sādhu) in 1. 47 ; (4) the use of anusvāra before a vowel, e. g. in ētēshāṁ=upari-, 1. 43, and at the end of a hemistich, as in 11. 3, 12 and 46; (5) the representation of a dipthong or its part by a pṛishṭha-mātrā, with a very few exceptions ; and (6) putting the sign of avagraha correctly in 1. 41, to denote the elision of a before ē, but wrongly in 1. 15 and 44, to denote dīrgha-sandhi. Wrong spellings are often noted, e.g. in śrēyānsi, 1. 2, samviditaṁ, truṁsat and samvatsarē, all in 1. 9, sansāra, 11. 10-11 ; Magaddha, 1. 14 ; tru-pravara, 11. 14 f. and Ranāditya, 1. 19. The spellings of saiṅhikēya, 1. 1 and Vairisiṅha, 1. 5 are also peculiar. There are also mistakes of engraving ; letters, their parts, mātrās, anusvāra and visarga are manytimes omitted, as will be known from the corrections made in the text that follows.

...The object of the inscription is to record the donation, by Vākpatirājadēva, of the village Vaṇikā situated in the Āvaraka-bhōga in Hūṇa-maṇḍala, in favour of thirty-six Brāhmaṇas hailing from different localities (11. 13-42). The announcement of the king was made before all the royal officials, Brāhmaṇas and the other leading persons and the paṭṭakila. The order in which each of the donees is mentioned is his original place, gōtra with number of pravaras, Vēda and śākhā, his own name with his father’s name, and lastly, the number of parts (aṁśa) donated in favour of him. From the tabulated list appended below, it will be known that in eight cases the record also mentions the name of the dēśa in which the original place of the donee was included ; and that the Brāhmaṇa donees had hailed to Mālwā from the distant countries such as Magadha, Dakshiṇa-Rāḍha, Uttara-Kula(ru?) Sāvathika (Śrāvasti?), Lāṭa and Madhyadēśa, is an information which is valuable in the field of social history of Mālwā of this period. The list also shows that in two cases (Nos. 6 and 20) the epithets of the donees are also given with their names ; in two cases (Nos. 9-10) the names end in svāmin ; and one name (No.2) appears as of a place. Of the names of the fathers of the donees mentioned in the record, only two (Nos. 1 and 9) are accompanied by their epithet which is Dīkshita. This very probably indicates that the practice of using the epithet was rather rare at the time when the present grant was issued.

...The donation is stated to have been made on the full-moon day of Kārttika, when there was a lunar eclipse, in the (Vikrama) Saṁvat 1038, elapsed (atīta), as given only in word in 1. 9. From 1. 52, below, we also learn that the charter was actually issued on the tenth day of the bright half of the second Āshāḍha of (Vikrama) Saṁvat 1038, which is the same year, evidently showing that Kārttika of 1038 must be taken as preceding Āshāḍha of the same year, the year has to be taken as commencing from Kārttika[1] . The equivalent Christian date, as calculated by Dikshit, is Sunday the 16th October, 981 A.C., for the first date, and 3rd July, 982 A.C., for the second. From these calculations we know that the charter was actually issued about nine months later.

...The record opens with two maṅgala-ślōkas, followed by the genealogical portion mentioning three predecessors of Vākpatirājadēva, viz. Kṛishṇarāja, his successor Vairisiṁha, and his successor Sīyaka. This portion is identical with that of the other records of Vākpatirāja, and nothing need be said here in this respect. We have already seen above that they all belonged to the Paramāra house of Mālwā. This is followed by the grant portion which too we have seen above.

...The gift-village Vaṇikā is mentioned as situated in the Āvaraka-bhōga in the Hūṇa-maṇḍala. Dikshit proposes to identify Vaṇikā with Benkā, lying 15 miles (24 kms.) north-west of Awār (Āvaraka of the inscription), which is near Āgar, a town situated to the north-east of Ujjain.[2] So far as the similarity in names is concerned, Dikshit is quite justified in proposing both these identifications. I have, however, to propose another alternative in this respect on more certain grounds. Awār near Āgar is only a tiny hamlet and contains nothing to indicate that it was a flourishing place in some former times so as to be designated as a maṇḍala. I am, therefore, inclined to identify the Āvaraka of the present grant with the village known as Āvrā, which lies about 30 kms. by road from Shāmgaḍh, a station on the Bombay-Delhi line of the Western Railway (between Ratlām and Kōṭā). About 10 kms. straight south-east of Āvrā is a village of the
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[1] Ep. Ind., Vol, XXIII. p. 104. Also see our remarks on the dates of the Bēṭmā and Ujjain grants of Bhōjadēva, showing that in this region the year at that time began in Kārttika and not in Chaitra.
[2] Dikshit, op, cit., p. 102. This place is about 75 kms. straight north-east of Ujjain and almost equidistant from Narwal ; it is now included in the adjoining district of Shājāpur.

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