North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SILAHARAS OF NORTH KONKAN

Whatever is written here−in deficient or redundant syllables−all that is authoritative. May there be prosperity !

No. 10 : PLATES XXV-XXVIII
DIVE AGAR PLATES OF CHHITTARAJA : SAKA YEAR 949

.. THESE plates were discovered by one Mrs. Chandrabai Pandurang Nakti in her field in Survey No. 88 at Divē Āgar in the Śrīvardhana tāluka of the Kolābā District of Mahārāshṭra. Mr. G. H. Khare obtained the plates from her. They are being edited by Dr. M.G. Dikshit in the Epigraphia Indica. I obtained their ink impressions from Dr. G. S. Gai, Chief Epigraphist, for inclusion of the record in the present Volume.

.. The plates are three in number, each measuring about 15 cm. by 10 cm. In the middle of the top of each plate there is a hole 1.5 cm. in diameter, through which passes a ring, about 1 cm. in thickness. The ends of this ring are soldered to a seal. On this seal there appears Garuḍa, seated full front, with folded hands and outstretched wings. The weight of the plates, the ring and the seal is 655 gm.

.. The record consists of 49 lines, of which twelve are inscribed on the inner side of the first plate and on the second side of the second plate, fourteen on the first side of the second plate, and the remaining eleven on the inner side of the third plate. The characters are of the Nāgarī alphabet. The following peculiarities may be noted: The left member of kh is still without a tail, see Śaṁkhachūḍaṁ, line 6 ; the palatal ñ is written horizontally, see pañcha, line 13 ; dh has not yet developed a horn on the left, see –adhik-āksharam-vā, line 48 ; and the palatal ś appears in a cursive form in some places, see praśasyatē, line 21. The language is Sanskrit, and the record is partly in verse and partly in prose. The initial maṅgala ślōkas in praise of Gaṇanāyaka and Śiva and also the verse describing Jīmūtavāhana, the legendary ancestor of the Śilāhāras, are repeated from

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earlier records of the dynasty. Unlike those records, however, the present plates summarise the description of the first eight ancestors of the reigning king in a single verse (4). In it Aparājita is mentioned by his epithel dīpti-mārtaṇḍa (the sun in splendour). The next verse (5), which occurred in an incorrect from in the earlier Bhāṇḍup plates and caused confusion in the interpretation of the genealogy of the Śilāhāras, mentions Vajjaḍa and his successor Kēśidēva. The Bhāṇḍup plates seemed to state that the latter was the elder brother of Vajjaḍa who apparently superseded him. Verse 5 of the present plates gives the correct reading of the hemistich. It no doubt mentions Kēśidēva as the successor of Vajjaḍa, but it does not sate that he was the latter’s elder brother. It is only in these two Śilāhāra grants that Vajjaḍa’s successor is named Kēśidēva. In all others he is called Arikēsarin. So Kēśidēva seems to have been another name of Arikēsarin. He is the first king of that name in the Śilāhāra genealogy.

.. The formal portion of the grant is mutatis mutandis as in other Śilāhāra records. The orthography shows the usual peculiarities of the use of v for b (see vuddhyā, line 20), and of the dental s for the palatal ś (see sikhara in line 3) and the reduplication of the consonant following r (see Kaparddī, line 7). The record is rather carelessly written.

.. The inscription refers itself to the reign of the Śilāhāra king Chhittarāja (called Chhittapaiya in lines 15-16 and Chhintapaiya in lines 12, 43-44 and 46), the son of Vajjaḍa II. He is described as in his other grants, though his titles here are fewer than elsewhere.

...The object of the present inscription is to record the remission, by the king, of the tax of twenty dramas on the cluster of trees in the orchard donated by the Daṇdanāyaka Nāgavarman in (the village) Vēlāsivāgara comprised in the vishaya of Mandaraja. The donee was