North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

PACHHĀR COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF PARAMARDIDĒVA

It is a single copper-plate inscribed on one side only. All round the borders it shows a flat strip of copper, about 1 cm. broad, fastened on to it very tightly with twenty rivets ─ six on each of the horizontal sides and four on each of the vertical. The strips are so close to the inscribed portion that some of the aksharas could not completely come out in the impressions which were prepared fresh. The engraving, as far as I could judge from the impressions and also from the plate which I examined subsequently, is rather shallow ; and the interiors of a number of the letters show, as in some other inscriptions, marks of the engraver’s tool, which is also responsible for mis-shaping or incompletely engraving several of them owing to the carelessness of either the writer or the engraver, as will be pointed out in the text given below. The writing too, which appears to have suffered from the deposit of verdigris on the plate, demands patience on the part of the reader. It covers a space 38 cms. broad by 27 cms. high, and contains 22 complete lines. The formation of the letters is not symmetrical, and whereas in the first fifteen lines they show an average height of ∙7 to ∙8 cm., the height gradually increases in the following lines till in the last five or six lines it is not less than 1 cm. The plate together with the strips and nails weighs 2 kgms.

In the middle of the last line of the writing, the plate has a ring hole, about 1∙5 cm. in diameter, and it is natural to conclude that it was meant either for hanging the plate or holding with it another plate which was never discovered. But the ring with the seal, if at all attached to it, was not found. In the middle of the first four lines also, the writing is disturbed by a rude sketch of the goddess Lakshmī, in a rectangle, measuring about 5∙5 cms. broad by 4∙5 cms. high. The deity is seated cross-legged and is being sprinkled with water by an elephant on either side : she has four hands, the upper two of which are raised, with a lotus in each. The tips of the trunks of the elephants and the upper part of the diadem of the goddess are hidden under the strips fastened tightly on this portion of the plate.

The characters are Nāgarī, showing more or less the same palæographical peculiarities as of the Sēmrā and the Ichchhāvar grants, which were engraved by the same hand. To note the peculiarities of the individual letters of the present inscription, we find that the vowel i is formed of two loops, the first of which shows a tail and the second a horn above, as in iva-, l. 1 ; ṅ is still devoid of its dot, cf., -aṅka-, l. 9 ; ch and v are often alike, and occasionally dh and r also share the same peculiarities. For example, ch is formed as v in -chandra- and r as v in śirō, both in l. 1, and we find r engraved as v in śrī, dh as v in –adhi- and v as ch in vijaya and vīra-, all in l. 2.

Dh has developed a horn on its left limb ; this horn is occasionally joined to some other part of the letter than to the loop, e.g., to its vertical stroke or to that of the mātrā, as in –rājādhi-, l. 2, and sometimes, though rarely, it takes the place of the top-stroke itself, as in ¬–vaśudhā, l. 18. The verticals of dhā continue to be joined by a stroke in the middle. The vertical of p is often not drawn below the point where it meets the curve of its left limb, and consequently this letter is confounded with the vowel ē, e.g., see -pati and ēsha-, both in l. 4. The conjunct 99 continues to be cut as gn ; cf. vinirggata-, l. 11, and the curve of the superscript r is at times only a cursive stroke, as in the same example. Occasionally, the forms of ch, dh, r and v are so alike as to be distinguished only from the context.

The language of the inscription is Sanskrit ; and excepting one initial verse and five imprecatory and benedictory verses in the end, with two more which record the names of the writer and the engraver, the record is all in prose. The verses are not numbered. Grammatical and other errors are more to be found in the last portion.

As regards orthography, we may notice that v is throughout written for b and the dental sibilant for the palatal in some places ; see, e.g., in vādhā, l. 15 and visada-, l. 20 ; the palatal sibilant is sometimes put for the dental, as in ¬–vaśudhā, l. 18 ; a class-consonant following r is generally doubled ; see dharmma-, l. 21. Besides these, the final consonant is occasionally not marked, and sometimes the mark cannot be clearly distinguished, as in vasēt, l. 20 ; the dental nasal is wrongly put for the lingual in gṛihṇāti, and the lingual for the dental in puṇyāṇi, both in l. 17 ; the mātrā of ṛi is wrongly changed to ri in kṛimi-, l. 19 ; anusvāra is wrongly changed to m in samvat, l. 9, and in some other examples ; and finally, the vertical stroke of a mātrā and the daṇḍa used for marking punctuation are sometimes not distinguished from each other, e.g., in yō, the fifth letter in l. 9. The anusvāra is occasionally either not marked, or put haphazardly and in such a minute form as it could not come out on the impressions.

The plate was issued by the illustrious king Paramardin of the Chandēlla dynasty, from