South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MAIN BRANCH

No. 10: PLATE X
DUDIĀ PLATES OF PRAVARASĒNA II

...THESE plates were in the possession of some Gonds at Dudiā in the Aser pargaṇā of the Chhindwārā District of Madhya Pradesh. They have been edited before, with facsimiles, by Dr. Kielhorn in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol III, pp. 258. They are edited here from the same facsimiles.

...“The copper-plates are four in number, each of which measures 7^1/2” long by 3^5/8” broad. The second and third plates are inscribed on both sides, the first plate is so on one side, and the fourth is blank and merely serves to protect the writing on the second side of the third plate. The plates are quite smooth, their edges having been neither fashioned thicker nor raised into rims; but the writing, nevertheless, is in an excellent state of preservation. About 1^1/4” distant from the middle of the proper right margin, each plate has a hole, about 7/I6” diameter, for a ring on which the plates were strung. The ring is between ¼” and 3/8” thick, and 3^7/8” in diameter. The two ends of the piece of copper of which it is formed are flattened off, and contain holes for a rivet, which has been lost. On the ring slides a copper band, ¾” broad, which is bent into a ring of 7/8” by 1^3/8” in diameter, and the two ends of which are soldered together. Through the soldered part a hole is drilled, which corresponds to a hole in the centre of a circular seal; and a rivet, which also lost now, must have held the copper band and the seal together. Owing to the loss of the two rivets, the ring, the copper band and the seal are now quite loose. The seal is 3^1/I6” diameter, and has across its surface a legend in four lines. The weight of the four plates is 3^1/4 lbs.; that of the ring, the copper band and the seal is ½ lb.; total, 3^3/4 lbs.1”

...The characters belong to the box-headed variety of the southern alphabets and resemble those of the preceding Indore plates. Like the latter, they show two forms of n and b; the curve of l encircles the letter on the left as in lalāmasya in line 1 of the seal; the sign of the jihvāmūlīya occurs in line 22 and that of the upadhmānīya in line 3 of the seal and line 16 of the plates. Inter-punctuation is shown by one or more horizontal or vertical strokes. The language is Sanskrit, and, with the exception of the legend on the seal and one imprecatory verse in line 27-28, the whole record is in prose. As regards orthography, we find that a consonant has been reduplicated before and after r as in parākkram-, lines 4-5 and –Āptōryyām-, line 1; before y as in Bhāgiratthy-amala-, line 5; and after anusvāra in saṁvvatsarē, line 28.

...The inscription, which opens with dṛishṭam, is one of the Vākāṭaka Mahārāja Pravarasēna II. His genealogy is given here exactly as in the Jāmb plates, his maternal grandfather being called Dēvagupta. The object of it is to record the grant, by Pravarasēna, of 25 (nivartanas) of land at Darbhamalaka in the Chandrapura saṅgamikā, to one Yakshārya of the Kauśika gōtra, and of sixty (nivartanas) of land² at the village of Karmakāra in the Hiraṇyapura bhoga to one Kāliśarman of the Kauṇḍinya gōtra. The order is addressed to the royal officers, soldiers and policemen in the Ārammi-rājya in which evidently both the aforementioned villages were situated. The charter was written by Gōladāsa while Namidāsa was the Sēnāpati. It was issued from Pravarapura.
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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. III, pp. 258-59.
² The figures of land (bhūmi) given here, like those in the Chammak plates, probably refer to the nivartanas. See line 22 of the Paṭṭan plates (No. 13, below) which mention 400 nivartanas of land according to the royal measure.