|
The Indian Analyst
|
|
North Indian Inscriptions |
SUPPLEMENTARY INSCRIPTIONS
No. 202 ; PLATE CLXXVIII INFORMATION about this plate was received by me from Shri B. C. Jain, Deputy Director of Archaeology and Museums in Madhya Pradesh, Eastern division, who also favoured me with a photograph of the inscription. From the same photograph the inscription is edited here.[1] The record is inscribed on a single plate of copper, now preserved in the Museum at Rāmvan a village lying about 16 kms. from Satnā on metalled road to Rēwā, in Madhya Pradesh. It was presented to the Museum by Professor Urmila Prasada Shukla of Amarapāṭan (in Satnā District), who procured it from his friend the late R. D. Gautama, belonging to the family of spiritual preceptors of the former State of Nāgōd (in the Vindhya region of the present Madhya Pradesh), [2] in whose possession it was from heredity. Nothing could now be known about the provenance of the plate. The plate is inscribed on one side only. The writing is protected by copper-bands (.7 cms. wide) fixed with copper-rivets on all the four borders of the inscribed side. It measures 40 cms. broad by 27.5 cms. high, and is in a good state of preservation, except in ll. 14-15 where most of the letters are either abraded or mutilated. In the central part of the upper section of the inscription, a space about 4-5 cms. square is occupied by the seated figure of the goddess Lakshmī, with four arms, the upper two of which hold a lotus in each. The figure disturbes the continuity of the writing in the first four lines of the inscription. The plate, together with the rivetted border bands, weighs 2502 grams, as I am informed by Shri Jain.
The writing shows slovenliness, though the charter is an imperial Chandēlla record. Most of the letters are rather carelessly formed ; and the engraver, who failed to follow the precise shape of the letters, worked in his own arbitrary way, deforming most of them, with the result that often they cannot be deciphered satisfactorily. This difficulty is accentuated particularly in reading the names of the donees mentioned in the grant portion where we have no clue to decide the precise letters forming a name. Moreover, the signs of mātrās, anusvāras and the superscript r are often omitted in the process of engraving ; the daṇḍa, which also bears a topstroke, as the letters do, is many a time confounded with a sign of ā-mātrā, and the curve of the matra of short and long i si often omitted. The inscription has in all twenty-four lines of writing, the last of which, which is about one-third of the length of the others, is wholly occupied by the sign-manual of the king. The alphabet is Nāgarī, regular for the period and the locality to which the record belongs. The characters resemble those of the Gaḍhā and Sāgar plates of Trailōkyavarman, who issued this plate also. To note the formation of the individual letters, ch, dh, and v often appear alike ; p, m, and y occasionally resemble each other ; t is sometimes confounded with n ; and r, which is generally marked as a vertical, so as to resemble a daṇḍa, has sometimes a slanting or horizontal stroke, or only a dot, attached to it on the left. Occasionally the letters are also crisped into each other, and the limbs forming them are often separated. The language is Sanskrit, excepting in the use of some of the Prakrit words which are given in their original or local forms. The record is composed in prose, with the exception of two verses in the beginning and two in the end.
The inscription refers itself to the victorious reign of the Chandrātrēya (Chandēlla) king Trailōkyavarman, and speaks of the royal house to which he belonged. Its object is to record
[1] From the same photograph, the inscription was edited by me in the Journ. of Academy of Ind. Nemismatics (Indore). Vol. I, pp. 1 ff. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|
