Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

ANNUAL REPORT ON INDIAN EPIGRAPHY FOR THE YEAR 1948-49

  During the year 1948-49 ten copper-plate charters were examined and estampages of 103 stone inscriptions secured from different parts of India. On account of financial stringency and other causes all the members of the staff could not go on tour and consequently the number of inscriptions copied is smaller than in previous years.

COPPER PLATES

   The earliest of the copper-plate charters examined during the year is the one (No. 6 of Appendix A) that was found at Terāsiṅghā, a village on the bank of the river Tēl within the State of Kalahandi, now merged in Orissa. This record introduces to us a hitherto unknown ruler, Mahārāja Tushṭikāra, a devotee of the goddess Stambhēśvarī. The charters is issued from Tarabhramaraka and registers the royal grant of an area called Prastaravāṭaka to a Brāhmaṇa named Drōṇaśarman of the Kāśyapa gōtra. At the instance of the king’s official, Rāhasika Subandhu, the record was written by one Sadgāmaka. It is not dated, but can, on palaeographical grounds, be assigned to the sixth or seventh century A.C. The king is not known from any other source. It may, however, be pointed out that the goddess Stambhēśvarī, whose devotee he was figures as the family deity of the Śulkīs who ruled over the area now comprising the Dhenkanal region of Orissa about the tenth century A.C.

   Copper plates Nos. 3 and 4 of Appendix A belong to the rulers of the Eastern Gaṅga house. The earlier of the two was issued from Kaliṅganagara by Dēvēndravarman, son of Rājēndravarman. The record is dated in the year 306 of the Gaṅga era. It registers the grant by the king of the village Musunika in Varāhavartanī to Ādityavishṇuśarman, a Brāhmaṇa resident of Nagara. The other was issued in the regin of another king of the same name and of the same family. It is dated Śaka 988 (1066 A.C.) and introduces Rāṇaka Bhīmakhēḍi (son of Rāṇaka Dharmakhēḍi), a hitherto unknown member of the Kadamba family of Kaliṅga and a subordinate of king Dēvēndravarman. We know of a Bhīmakhēḍi who was father of Dharmakhēḍi, but the additional fact revealed by this records is that the latter had a son, Bhīmakhēḍi, named after his grandfather.

STONE INSCRIPTIONS

   At Devaprayāg, at the confluence of the Bhāgīrathī and Alakanandā, in the Garhwal District of Uttar Pradesh, were discovered a large number of inscriptions (Nos. 57 to 76 and 78 to 87 of Appendix B) engraved in Brāhmī characters of about the 4th century A.C. These are pilgrims’ records mainly consisting of personal names. They are of considerable palaeographical interest, some of them exhibiting ornate style of writing. A few of the names are as follows : Skandadatta, Mānaparvata, Mātṛichēṭa, Guhavarman and Chaturvyūha.

   The rest of the stone inscriptions were secured mostly from the Raṅganātha temple at Śrīraṅgam in South India. The bulk of them belong to the reign of the Chōḷa king Kulōttuṅga I. In one of them (No. 8), Nambirāṭṭiyār Lōkamahādēviyār is mentioned in connection with a deed of gift made at the instance of Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, an official of the temple. Her relationship to king Kulōttuṅga I, in the 47th year of whose reign the record is dated, is not specified. Whether she can be identified with Trailōkyamādēviyār, one of Kulōttuṅga’s queens, on the basis of the similarity of the names is doubtful.