North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

SĒMRĀ COPPER-PLATE GRANT OF PARAMARDIDĒVA

over to me, at my request, by the Director of the Museum at Lucknow, to whom my thanks are due The record is on three massive plates of copper, large in size, each measuring about 65∙75 cms broad by 49∙50 cms high. All round the rims, flat bands apparently of copper and about 1 cm. broad, are fastened, by rivets, on the inscribed side of each of them, so as to approach quite close to the writing and occasionally hiding a part of letter hare and there. Each plate contains a hole, 2cms. in diameter and interrupting the continuity of writing in the middle of two of two or three lines on each, at the top or bottom, apparently for a ring to pass through and hold them together.¹ The writing is also interrupted by a rectangular space, measuring 7 cms. each side and carved in the middle of the first five lines, containing a representation of the goddess Lakshmī, seated on a lotus and being sprinkled with water by an elephant on either side, as to be found generally on Chandēlla charters.

The second of the plates, which is full of verdigris, is inscribed on both the sides and the rest two on the inner side only. The height of the individual letters is about 1 cm .The record consists of one hundred and twenty-four lines, twenty-nine of which are engraved on the first plate, thirty-one on the first side of the second, and the rest are equally distributed on the other side of the second and on the third plate. All the three plates together weigh 5 kgms. and 600 gms.

The writing is in a state of good preservation, except that one akshara hare and another there is wholly or partially lost, though it can be supplied from the context. The letters on the middle portion of ll. 67-77 (on the reverse side of the second plate) are either slightly rubbed or are not deeply carved probably in view of the fact that it bears letters on both the sides. The letters are well formed but not carefully cut, as to be shown below.

The characters are Nāgarī of the twelfth century A.C., resembling those of the Mahōbā inscription of the time of Kīrtivarman, as already observed by Cartellieri, and as we may also note, those of the Bhārat-Kalā-Bhavan grant of Madanavarman, which was engraved about 30 years prior to the present inscription.² As regards the individual letters, attention may be drawn to the two forms of the vowel a, one, e.g., in Ajai-, l. 74, and the other in Asadhara-, l. 75, to the formation of k which is sometimes in ligatures, e.g., in –daśaka, occurring thrice in l. 7, to the of the conjunct gg engraved as gn, as in Bhārggava, l. 29, and to that of ch and v, both of which are almost similar, e.g., in vācha-, l. 5, where we have both these aksharas quite alike. Whether ṅ had developed a dot or not cannot be clearly known : it however appears possible that the dot was marked in the original, but was engraved so lightly that it could not come out in the impression, as some other signs and parts of letters also. Dh is in a transitional state, sometimes appearing without a horn so as to resemble v, e.g., in sādha-, l. 10, whereas in a few instances it is engraved with a horn on its left limb ; the horn is often slanting, as in –dhvajē, l. 4, but occasionally it is curved and is either joined to the top of the vertical of the letter, e.g., in –adhi-, l. 4, or to that of the mātrā attached to it, e.g., in the same prefix in l. 2. The subscript form of this letters, however, is always devoid of the horn. Eh often resembles t, of course by a wrong stroke, as in bhūta-bhavishyad-, l. 10. R, which has generally assumed its modern Nāgarī form, is often confounded with v-, e.g., in –māhēśvara-, l. 4 ; sometimes it ends in a wedge, as in –gōtra, l. 31, and occasionally, it is only a vertical line with a stroke attached to its middle, on the left, as in Visvarūpa-, l. 40. The subscript r shows the full form of the letter with its superscript half-drawn, cf., e.g., Chandrātrēya-, l. 1. It may also be noted here that some of the numerical symbols bear top-strokes as the aksharas. And lastly, a final consonant in some instances is either not clearly marked or is indicated by its smaller size.

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¹ Cartellieri observed that the plates were ‘joined by a plain ring’. But I am informed by the Director of the Museum at Lucknow that the ring is missing. To give some more details which I noted in my personal examination of the plates. I found that strips of copper, 0∙8 to 1 cm, broad, are fastened to each of the inscribed sides, with ten nails of copper, on each of the horizontal, and seven on each of the vertical sides, so as to show the thickness of the strips in the case of the first and the third plate to be 0∙5 cms. each and in case of the second plate, which is inscribed on both the sides, it is almost double of this. All the rivets are still intact. The letters are fairly deep but do not show through on the back of the plates which are sufficient thick.
² In V.S. 1192. Above, No. 119.