Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

   No. 51, discovered at Konāṃukh in Nowgong, Assam, and now deposited in the Provincial Museum at Gauhati, belongs to King Dharmapāladēva, son of Harshapāla (plate I). It is the earliest copper-plate grant of this king discovered so far. The inscription on it is dated in the first regnal year of the king and records the grant of some land to a Brāhmaṇa named Mahābāhu. The grant-land is said to be situated in Mērupāṭaka in Purujī-vishaya. The poet Prasthānakalaśa is described as the composer of the praśasti. The record may be assigned on palæographical considerations to about the 12th century A. D. It is well known that with Madanapāla, the main line of the great Pāla dynasty came to an end. The Dharmapāla of the present plates, who is described as the son of Harshapāla whose ancestry is given for five generations, has apparently no connection with the main branch of the Pālas.

   Another copper-plate inscription (No. 50) belonging to the Chandēlla king Trailōkyavarmadēva was secured from the Central Museum, Nagpur. The record, issued from Tēhri, registers the gift of the village Maṁḍāura-grāma to a learned Brāhmaṇa by the king in Samvat 1264 (A.D. 1205-6).

   No. 3 secured from Peṇṭapāḍu in the West Godavari District belongs to the Telugu Chōḍa chief Bhaktirāja whose descent is traced in the record from Nalla-Bhīma of the solar race and of the Kāśyapa gōtra. It records the interesting fact that the chief in alliance with Prōlaya-Nāyaka and his cousin Kāpaya-Nāyaka, stemmed the tide of the Muhammadan invasion and established himself as the ruler of the Vēṅgī country. In the course of the battle which ensured, his maternal uncle Vēṅga-Bhūpati lost his life leaving his kingdom without an heir and Bhaktirāja was installed as its ruler by Kāpaya. The inscription is dated in Śaka 1265 (=A. D. 1343).

   Of the copper-plate charters of the Vijayanagara dynasty, No. 8 belongs to Virūpāksha (III), the last king of the Saṅgama line, while Nos. 9, 10 and 11 belong to king Kṛishṇadēvarāya. Among these, the first (No. 9) records the gift of certain vartanas (incomes) for services in the Gaṅgadēvasthānas (shrines of goddess Gaṅgā) in Animala and other places. The next (No. 10) records the marriage-levy (peṇḍli-vartana) payable by the members of the Kaṁpaṭaṁ community of Animala to certain individuals who were probably the (spiritual) heads of their community. No. 12 belongs to the time of Aḷiya Rāmarāja, the son-in-law of Kṛishṇarāya, who, the inscription states, restored order in the administration of the villages in the Roḍḍa hōbaḷi which had fallen into disorder on the death of the king, viz., Kṛishṇadēvarāya.

   The remaining copper-plate records come from the Tanjore and the Ramnad District. Those from the former belong mostly to the Nāyakas of Tanjore, and their successors the Mahrattas while all the records from the Ramnad Zamindari (samsthānam) barring a few, belong to the Sētupati chiefs of the place who are continuing to rule over the place to this day. Nos. 20 to 23 dated in Śaka 1611 in the reign of the Mahratta king Śaṁbhōji record the renovation of the Kanaka-sabhā at Chidaṁbaram by Chittaṁbala-yōgin and the performance of the kuṁbhābhishēka ceremony by Muttayya Dīkshita who is described as the kula-guru of the royal house.

Stone inscriptions

 The earliest among the stone inscriptions are two epigraphs inscribed on an oblong trapezoid rough-grained stone slab, nearly nine feet long and three and a half feet broad, found at Deoṭek in the Chanda District of the Central Provinces. The slab is now deposited in the Nagpur Museum. These two inscriptions have been reviewed by Prof. Mirashi (Proceedings, A. I. O. C., 1935, pp. 613 ff.) though they were cursorily noticed by Cunningham as early as 1878 (Cunningham’s A. S. R., Vol. VII, p. 124).

   The earlier of the two inscriptions (No. 164) is engraved in Brāhmī characters and in Prakrit language probably of the time of Aśōka. As the inscription is damaged, the object of the record cannot be made out. It records an order of Sāmi (Lord), meaning apparently the king, whose name is not given and mentions the locality Chikambarī, and the officer amacha.

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