South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MAIN BRANCH

...rajakya (for rajakīya), line 22. The writer has violated an elementary rule of concord in in sutāyāḥ Prabhāvatiguptāyām, line 17 and of compounding in mūrdhn-ābhishiktānām-, line 7. As regards orthographical peculiarities sanctioned by Sanskrit grammar, we may notice that consonant preceding r and y is doubled in parākrama-, line 6, and sarvvāddhyaksha, line 24, and that following r is similarly reduplicated in varddhamāna-, line 13.

...The inscription, which opens with dṛishṭam, is one of the Vākkāṭaka Mahārāja Pravarasēna II. His genealogy is given here as in his other plates, his maternal grandfather being called Dēvagupta. The object of the present plates, which were issued from Pravarapura¹, is to record the grant of 400 nivartanas of land, by the royal measure², in the Aśvatthakhēṭaka for the maintenance of a sattra or charitable feeding house in honour of the foot-prints of Mahāpurusha (Vishṇu)³. The village was situated in the mārga of Varadākhēṭa included in the division (bhōga) of Lōhanagara. The gift was made at the request of Nārāyaṇarāja. The charter was written on the seventh day of the dark fortnight of Kārttika in the twenty-seventh (regnal) year. The scribe was Kālidāsa who was serving under the Senāpati Kātyāyana. The record was engraved by the goldsmith Īśvaradatta, who was a servant of Kauṇḍarāja. It is stated at the end that Pitāmaha and Nanda caused the charter to be drafted.

... The present plates furnish the last but one date so far known of Pravarasēna II’s reign. The mention of Pravarapura as the place of issue shows that the city continued to be the royal capital to the end of his reign. Kaundarāja whose servant Īśvaradatta incised the present charter is evidently identical with Koṇḍarāja, the son of Śatrughnarāja, at whose request the grant recorded in the Chammak plates was made⁴.

... The mention of Kālidāsa in the present grant raises the interesting question of his identity with the illustrious Sanskrit poet of that name. The latter is generally placed in the Gupta period, but the earliest epigraphical mention of his name occurs in the Aihoḷe praśasti of Pulakēśin II, dated Śaka 556 (634 A.C.)⁵. This is the first time that the name Kālidāsa has been discovered in a record of the Gupta period.

... Kalidāsa, no doubt, figures only as a scribe in the present grant, but that does not per se disprove his identity with the great Sanskrit poet. Such charters were generally drafted and written on copper-plates by clerks working in the office of the Sāndhivigrahika or Minister for peace and war, but sometimes we find even great officers mentioned as writers of such documents. Thus the writer of the Tirōḍī plates of Pravarasēna II was the Chief Minister (Rājyādhikṛita) himself⁶. Again, according to a tradition recorded by Rāmadāsa, a commentator of the Setubandha, Kālidāsa composed the Prakrit Kāvya for Pravarasēna by the order of Vikramāditya⁷. This he must have done during his sojourn in Vidarbha. The idea of writing the Mēghadūta seems to have suggested itself to the poet’s mind at Rāmṭek near Nāgpur (Rāmagiri of the Mēghadūta), which we know was a holy place visited by the
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¹ Since the grant was made at the capital, the expression vaijayike dharma-sthānē occurs in it as it does in other Vākāṭaka grants made at the capital.
² The same expression occurs in the Waḍgaon plates (No. 12). See also Rajamānika in No. 6, line 18. There may have been local measures called vishaya-mana. Cf. Saṅkhēḍā plates of Dadda II (C.I.I., Vol. IV. p. 77).
³ For a similar grant of a slightly later period, see the Poḍāgaḍh inscription, Ep. Ind. Vol. XXI, p. 156. For Mahāpurusha or Mahāpurusha meaning Vishṇu, see the Bhāgavata purāṇa, II, 1, 10; V, 15, 4 and 6 ; 16-17 ; VIII, 6, 32, etc.
⁴ See No. 6, line 19.
⁵ Ep. Ind., Vol. VI, pp. 1 f.
⁶ No. 11, line 32.
⁷ Nirṇayasagar Press ed., p. 3 ; see also the colophon of the last canto.