North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

Third Plate

No. 7 ; PLATE VII
GAONĪ COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF VĀKPATIRAJADĒVA (II)
[Vikrama] Year 1043

...THIS inscription is incised on two copper-plates which were discovered in the village of Gaonrī[4] in the District of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, in 1931, along with those of the grant that immediately precedes here. The record was first noticed by M.B. Garde, in the Anuual Report of the (former) Gwalior State Department of Archaeology, for V.S. 1987 (1930-31 A. C.). p.11 ; and about five years subsequently it was edited by K. N. Dikshit, who was then in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, in the Epigraphia Indica, Volume XXIII (1935-36), with text in the Nāgari characters (pp. 111 ff.) and facsimile-plates between pp. 112-13. From the same facsimiles the inscription is edited here.

...As stated above, the plates are two in number, each measuring 31.75 to 32.38 cms. broad by 24.7 to 25.4 cms. high. Their rims have been raised to protect the writing, which is in a fair state of preservation. The lower margin of the first plate and the upper margin of the second are pierced with two holes at an intervening space of about 16 cms., for rings to hold them together: but the rings are not forthcoming. When the plates were sent to Dikshit in the Indian Museum. he was informed that the rings were of iron and in a very fragmentary state of preservation, and therefore were thrown away ; but he seems to be justified in remarking that “it appears that the labourers who found the plates considered the rings to be iron (as they took the plates
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[1] The joining horizontal bar of this letter is not engraved.
[2] This mark of punctuation is redundant.
[3] The letters of the sign-manual which is in continuation, are smaller than the main portion of the record.
[ 4 ] Gaonrī (also spelt as Gōnri and Gōnry) is about 5 kms. to the north-east of Narwal, which is a big village and lies about 18 kms. to the south-east of Ujjain, on the Dewās-Ujjain metalled road. For the other details regarding the discovery of the plates etc., see the inscription that immediately precedes this. Both these grants were also noticed in Statesman. 12th May. 1932, where they were called Narwar grants. See D.H.N.I., Vol. II. p. 853, where they are also said to be in the India Office Library. London.

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