South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE VATSAGULMA BRANCH

No. 24 : PLATE XXIV
INDIA OFFICE PLATE OF DĒVASĒNA

...THIS plate was in the possession of the India Office, London, but it is not known how of when it went there. Its original find-spot is not known. It was edited with a facsimile by Dr. H. N. Randle in the New Indian Antiquary, Vol. II, pp. 177 f. Later, I published a note on it in the same volume of the Journal, pp. 721 f. It is edited here from Dr. Randle’s facsimile.

... ‘It is the first plate of a set, of which the other plates are not forthcoming. It now measures 9^¾ by 2^½ inches and weighs 5 ounces; but since a part has been broken away at the ring-hole (which is fortunately in an unusual position, clear of the inscription, on the proper right edge), the plate in its original condition must have been rather longer and heavier. The sides are straight, but the intact end has the corners rounded off. There is no raised edge or rim. The inscription consists of three lines, engraved fairly deeply (so that some characters show slightly on the reverse), and on one side only, as is usual in the case of the first (and last) plates of Vākāṭaka grants. The first and last akshara in the third line project beyond the limit of the first two lines¹’. ‘The inscription ends abruptly.’

...Thecharacters are of the box-headed variety of the southern alphabets, resembling those of the grants of the Vākāṭaka Pravarasēna II, the only peculiarity worth noticing being the general tendency to raise the upturned curves of such letters as k, r, and the subscript y higher than is usual in Pravarasēna II’s grants. The confusion of t and n occurs in this grant also. The language is Sanskrit and the extant portion is wholly in prose. The language is in places influenced by Prakrit as in sacharantara(ka), line 2 and yappajjassa, line 3. The only orthographical peculiarity it presents is the doubling of a consonant after r as in -māgga, line 1 and dharmma-,line 3.

...The plate purports to have been issued by the Vākāṭaka Mahārāja Dēvasēna from Vātsyagulma. It records the order of the king addressed to the touring royal officers (kulaputras) such as the bhaṭas, Bhōjakas and Daṇḍanāyakas employed in the northern subdivision of Nāṅgarakaṭaka that the village (probably Yappajja mentioned at the end of line 3) had been granted by him to the Brāhmaṇas Dharmasvāmin² and Bhavasvāmin of the Śāṇḍilya gōtra. The record ends here abruptly, the subsequent portion, mentioning the exemptions granted to the donecs, the appeal to future rulers, the regnal date and the names of the writer and the Dūtaka, being lost.

... Unlike most other of the Vākāṭakas, the present inscription does not open with dṛishṭam ‘seen’. It is not, again, in the usual style of Vākāṭaka grants which give the genealogy of the reigning king in the beginning. Besides, the record is full of grammatical errors. Dr. Randle therefore conjectured that the engraver’s incompetence proved too much for the Vākāṭaka official and so the plate was rejected before completion of the charter³. None of these reasons, however, are quite convincing. Though the word dṛishṭam usually occurs in the beginning of Vākāṭaka grants, it does not do so invariably⁴. The Ṛiddhapur
___________________

¹ N.I.A., Vol. II, p. 177.
² Randle takes Dharmasvāmin as an epithet of Bhavasvāmin. No such epithet, however, occurs elsewhere.
³ N.I.A., Vol. II, p. 180, n. 4
⁴ It may be noted that there is no empty space left for it in the beginning of line 1 as in Nos. 17 and 18.