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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA
No. 12 ; PLATE XIV ...THE plates on which the subjoined inscription is engraved are said to have been found by a farmer, some time in the third quarter of the last century, in course of ploughing his field, in the vicinity of Ujjain – the Ujjayinī of ancient times, which is now the chief city of a district of the same name in the Mālava region of Madhya Pradesh. The record was published by Nilkanth Janardana Kirtane, in 1877, in the Indian antiquary, Volume VI, with text in Nāgarī characters (pp. 53-54) and translation (pp. 54-55), accompanied by a photo-lithograph. Kirtane’s article was common to three inscriptions, and naturally his treatment was limited. This article was thereafter referred to a number of times but is has not been critically edited so far. The whereabouts of the plates too ate not known today, they appear to have sailed out. [4] I edit the inscription on the basis of my own transcript prepared from the facsimile appended to Kirtane’s article referred to above. ...It is a set of two copper-plates, originally held together by two rings passing through two holes bored in the lower margin of the first and the upper margin of the second plate. Each of the plates is stated to measure 12” (30.48 cms.) by 8” (20.32 cms.). Their weight is not known. In the lower proper right corner of the second plate, as to be seen on the other Paramāra grants, there is a representation of a flying Garuḍa, with a snake in the left hand and the right is raised up as if to strike it. The design is enclosed in a rectangle of double lines inter-spaced with oblique strokes. The technical execution is neat and clean, as can be seen from the facsimile.
...The characters are Nāgarī of the tenth century A.C., to which the record belongs. Compared with the writing on the grant of Vākpatirāja, the initial a and the consonants k and n are
slightly advanced in form ; cf., e.g., atīta-, 1. 8 and nāga-, 1. 6. The forelimb of kh has assumed
the shape of the modern g and its latter limb appears in its full-fledged form, see lēkhāṁ, 1. 1. The
sign for ṅ continues to appear without the dot., and consonants such as t and h are engraved with
[1] Hultzsch corrected this word to dharmmadāya but we find the word also in some other records of the house ;
and it may also be observed here that word dharmmā- is more common in Mālwā even to this day.
....................CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM
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