South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MAIN BRANCH

No. 8 : PLATE VIII
ṚIDDHAPUR PLATES OF PRABHĀVATĪGUPTĀ

...THESE plates were found in the possession of Mahanta Dattarāja of the Mahānubhāva sect. They were discovered at Ṛiddhapur in the Mōrsī tahsil of the Amarāvatī District in Vidarbha. They have been edited twice by Mr. Y.R. Gupea, first in Marathi in the Bhārata Itihāsa Saṁśodhaka Maṇḍal Quarterly, Vol. III, Nos. 2-4, pp. 89 f., and again, with negative facsimiles and an English translation, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series, Vol. XX, pp. 53 f. The plates are now deposited in the Bhārata Itihāsa Saṁ- śōdhaka Maṇḍal, Poona. They are edited here from the same facsimiles.

...The copper-plates are four in number, measuring 5^3/4” long, 3^3/4” broad and ½” thick. The first and fourth plates are inscribed on one side only, and the other two, on both the sides. There are thirty-two lines of writing in all, of which five are inscribed on the first, and three on the fourth plate. The remaining plates have six lines on each side. The letters on the first and fourth plates and those in the first two lines on the first side of the second plate are larger and thicker than those in the other lines. The letters are well cut and the record is in a good state of preservation. Each plate has a round hole 6/16” in diameter for the ring which must have held the plates together, but neither the ring nor the seal which it must have carried is now forthcoming. The weight of the four plates is 115 tālās.

...The characters are of the box-headed variety of the southern alphabets resembling those of the Jāmb and other plates of Pravarasēna II. The only peculiarities that need be stated here are as follows− The length of the medial i (long) is indicated by a double curve or by a dot in a circle; see śrī-Chaṭōtkacha-, line 2 and –mahishī, line 9; the rare initial ai occurs in aihik-, line 13; medial au is bipartite as in –dauhitrō, line 3; kh has a loop at the bottom in -khanaka, line 19, but not in līkhitaṁ, line 31; g and ś have curves turned inside at the end of their left member as in –nagarē, line 12 and –varsha-śata- in line 11 ; ḍ and d are distinguished in daṇḍa-, line 24; b occurs with a notch on the left, as in Kubēra-, line 8; a final consonant is shown by its small size, but has no vertical stroke at the top; see vasundharām, line 28; the sign of the jihvāmūlīya occurs in line 22 and that of the upadhmānīya in lines 1, 6, 22, 27 and 29. Interpunctuation is indicated by vertical strokes as in line 1 or by dots or a small horizontal stroke as in lines 16 and 32. The language is Sanskrit, and except for a verse at the end, the whole record is in prose. As regards orthography, we may note the reduplication before and after r as in parākkram-, line 26 and chāturvvidya-, line 17; that of a consonant before y as in -pād-ānuddhyātō, line 5, and the use of li for the medial vowel ḷi in klipt-opakliptam, line 20.

...The inscription opens with Jitam Bhagavatā ‘Victory has been attained by the Lord’, which occurs also in the Poonā plates of Prabhavātīguptā. There is, however, no word like dṛishṭam ‘seen’ which occurs in the latter grant as well as in almost all complete charters of Pravarasēna II. The characters as well as the wording of the present grant, however, leave no doubt that it is genuine.

...The inscription is one of Mahādēvi Prabhāvatīguptā, the chief queen of the Vākāṭaka Mahārāja Rudrasēna II and the mother of the Vākāṭaka Mahārāja Dāmōdarasēna-Pravarasēna. As shown below, the record is dated in the 19th regnal year of the Vākāṭaka king Pravarasēna II, but, strange as it may appear, the introductory