South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MAIN BRANCH

...The record opens with the word dṛishṭam ‘seen’. The charter was granted by the Vākāṭaka king Pravarasēna II. His genealogy is given here as in his other grants, his maternal grandfather being called Rājādhirājā Dēvagupta. The plates were issued from the temple of Pravarēśvara, but the place where this temple was situated has not been mentioned. Pravarēśvara was evidently the name of the Śivaliṅga installed by the Vākāṭaka king Pravarasēna I and named after himself. The territorial division in which the temple was situated is called Pravarēśvara-shaḍviṁśati-vāṭaka in the Bēlorā plates (two sets), issued in the early part of Pravarasēna II’s reign. Its exact location cannot be determined, but it was probably situated in the Wardhā District.

...The present grant is dated, in line 53, on the tenth tithi of the dark fortnight of Vaiśākha in the twenty-ninth regnal year of Pravarasēna II. It is the last known grant of this king. It was written by Āchārya¹ while Mādhappa was the Sēnāpati.

...The object of the present inscription was to record the gift of two thousand nivartanas of land in the village Dhuvavāṭaka included in the territorial division of Vāruchcharājya, to several Brāhmaṇas of different Charaṇas (śākhās) and gotras. Only four of them viz. Yajñārya, Bhōjārya, Sōmārya and Dharmārya are mentioned by name. All of them belonged to the Vājasanēya or White Yajurvēda and the first three of them are explicitly stated to be of Kauṇḍinya gōtra. The villages Brāhmaṇavāṭaka, Ajakarṇa, Badarīgrāma and DarbhaPatha are mentioned while stating the boundaries of Dhuvavāṭaka. This donated land was given in exchange for another village named Vijayapallīvāṭaka² which had been previously gifted by Pṛithivīrāja i.e. by Pṛithivīshēṇa I. In the spurious third plate which was inserted in the charter later, two other gifts of twenty-five nivartanas each, together with an additional nivartana for building a residential house, are recorded on the occasion of tilavāchanaka (i.e. a śrāddha) in favour of the Brāhmaṇa Sōmārya, who was one of the donees of the original grant and resided at Kāllāra. The first piece of land was situated in the village of Lēkhapallikā and the second in that of Saṅgamikā, both being included in the territorial division called Ārammirājya.

...Both these gifts purport to have been made in the same regnal year as the original grant, viz. the twenty-ninth, but the first was given on the seventh day of the fifth fortnight, and the second on the ninth day of the seventh fortnight of the rainy season. It will be noticed that this method of recording a gift in a season, a fortnight and a day is different from fortnight and a tithi. Such season dates occur only in two other Vākāṭaka inscriptions viz. the Bāsim plates³ of Vindhyaśakti II and the Dudiā plates⁴ of Pravarasēna II. This difference in dating the two gifts adds to the suspicion about the genuineness of the third plate in which they are recorded. It seems plain that the Brāhmaṇa Sōmārya, in whose favour they are said to have been made, got the third plate prepared and engraved, and surreptitiously inserted it in the original charter.

... As for the localities mentioned in this grant, Vijayapallīvāṭaka may be Bijagōrā on the left bank of the Kanhān, about four miles to the north of the Multāi-Chhindwārā road. Vāruchcha, the headquarters of the Vāruchcha-rājya, may be Vārēgaon, about four miles west of Pāṇḍhurṇā. The village Dhuvavāṭaka, in which the donated land was situated, cannot now be traced, but two of its boundary villages still exist in the neighbourhood
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¹ Achārya was the scribe of the Siwanī plates (No.7) also.
² For another such exchange, see No. 15, lines 6-7.
³ No. 23, line 28 and 29.
⁴ No. 10, line 28.