Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

  No. 12(Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, pp. 258 ff.) belongs to king Nēṭṭabhañja of the Drumarājakula and is dated in the 26th year of his reign. He appears to be identical with the homonymous ruler who issued the Angul plate (J. B. O. R. S., Vol. XVII, pp. 104 ff.) and earlier than the members of the different branches of the Bhañja family so far known. This king seems to have ruled over wide areas and may have been an ancestor of the Bhañjas of Dhṛitipura and Vañjulvaka.

  No. 1 found at Belwa in the Dinajpur district in East Bengal belongs to king Mahīpāla I (c. 988-1038 A. D.) of the Pāla dynasty of Bengal and Bihar and is the second known copper plate charter of the king, the first being the Bāṇgarh plate dated in the 9th year of his reign (Ep. Ind., Vol. XIV, p. 326 ff.). The present document is dated four years earlier, i.e., in his 5th regnal year, and records a grant of lands in three localities in Pauṇḍravardhana-bhukti. The inscription has been published in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIX, pp. 1 ff.

   Yet another charter of the Pāla dynasty is No. 2, also from Belwa. It belongs to Vigrahapāla III, grandson of Mahīpāla I. It is dated in the 11th year of the king’s reign and is thus a year earlier than his Āmgāchhi plate dated in his 12th regnal year (Ep. Ind., Vol. XV, pp. 295 ff). This inscription also records a gift of lands in the Pauṇḍravardhana-bhukti. It has been published in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIX, pp. 9 ff., along with other grant from Belwa.

   No. 5 from the Asutosh Museum, Calcutta, was discovered at Mahada and was published long ago (Ep. Ind., Vol. XII, pp. 218 ff.) ; but, on re-examination, the records has revealed the existence of some new rulers of the TeluguChōḍa family who flourished in the Sonpur region of Orissa about the 12th century A.D. The donor of the plates, Sōmēśvaradēvavarman, seems to have been the grandson of Sōmēśvaradēva II, donor of the Patna Museum and Kumārisiṁhä Plates (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIX, pp. 97 ff ; J.K.H.R.S., Vol. I, No. 3, pp. 29 ff). He may be designated Sōmēśvara III of the Telugu-Chōḍa dynasty of Orissa, whose advent into the South Kōsala country has been discussed in detail in Epigraphia Indica Vol. XXVIII, pp. 283 ff., where the grant has been re-edited.

   No. 27 is of the time of Rāṇaka Parachakraśalya who claims to belong to the Rāshṭrakūṭa family although he ruled over parts of Orissa, far a way from the original home of his family. He was the son of Dhaṁsaka and the grandson of Chamaravigraha. The epithets of these rulers resemble those of the Southern Rāshṭrakūṭas Parachakraśalya bears the Śaiva epithet Paramamāhēśvara although the charter bears the Vaishṇava emblem of Garuḍa. The record is dated Saṁvat 56, possibly of the Chālukya-Vikrama era of 1076 A.D. The inscription proves, for the first time, the existence of a line of Rāshṭrakūṭa rulers in the Sambalpur region of Orissa. The Rāshṭrakūṭa chiefs may have entered this tract in the train of Chālukya Vikramāditya VI who is stated to have led expeditions to Eastern India some time before 1068 A.D.

   No. 10 is of the reign of Chokkanātha Nāyaka of Madurai and is dated Śaka 1574, Nandana, corresponding to 1653 A.D. It gives the chief such high sounding titles as Rājādhirāja, Pāṇḍyadharā-maṇḍalēśvara, Dakshiṇasiṁhāsanādhyaksha etc., and describes him as the ornament of the family of Viśvanātha Nāyaka-Tirumala Nāyaka and as ruling at Triśirapura. The date is far too early for Chokkanātha who succeeded his father Muddu-Vīrappa in 1659 A.D. when the latter died after a short rule of a few months, and so casts a doubt as to the genuineness of the document.

Stone Inscriptions

  The earliest among the stone inscriptions (No. 181) is a record in Sanskrit in Brāhmī characters engraved on the gadā of a Vaishṇava image at Burhikhār in the Bilaspur District, Madhya Pradesh. The characters of the record may be assigned to about the beginning of the Christian era. The Purport of the inscription is to record the installation of the image and this points to the existence of one of the earliest Vaishṇava shrines in the locality in question.

   A round stone preserved in the Museum at Junāgaḍh in Saurashtra (No. 411) bears on it two identical short inscriptions in characters of the 5th century A.D., which give the weight of the stone in symbols as 500, 70, and 6 (i.e., 576) palas. Evidently the stone was used as a standard weight. A similar stone unearthed from a paddy field at the island of Elephanta near Bombay also bears an inscription (No. 96) in slightly earlier characters recording the weight of the stone as 1375 palas.