South Indian Inscriptions

INCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF TRIPURI

No. 48;
PLATE XXXVIII
BANARAS PLATES OF KARNA : (KALACHURI) YEAR 793

THE inscription on these plates was first brought to notice by Captain Wilford who described it as follows in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. IX, page 108:––

“A few years ago (in 1801) this grant was found at the bottom of an old well filled with rubbish in the old fort of Banaras. It is engraven upon two brass plates, joined by a ring, to which is affixed the Imperial seal. It is of the same size nearly and in the same shape with that found at Mongir. The writing is also the same or at least without any material deviation. The Imperial seal is about 3 inches broad : on it, in bas-relievo, is Pārvatī with four arms, sitting with her legs crossed; two elephants are represented, one on each side of her, with their trunks uplifted. Below is the bull, Nandi, in a reclining posture, and before him is a basket. Between Pārvatī and the bull is written Śri-Karnnadēva. The grant is dated in the second year of his new year and also of his reign answering to the Christian year 192 . . . The ancestors of Śrī-Karnnadēva mentioned in the grant were, first his father Gāngēyadēva, with the title Vijaya-kantaka ; he died in a loathsome dungeon. He was the son of Kōkalladēva, whose father was Lakshmanarājadēva.”¹ The plates were subsequently edited in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II. pp. 297 ff., with lithographs, but without a translation, by Dr. Kielhorn, who gives the following account of their subsequent history²:─

“The plates, thus described by Captain Wilford were lost for a long time; but they were rediscovered about 1862, when through the kindness of Mr. Griffith, then Principal of the Banaras College, Sir A. Cunningham received an impression, together with a transcript which had been prepared by one of the students of the College. Both were made over to Dr. F.E. Hall, who now at my request has placed them at my disposal and has thus enabled me to publish the text of the inscription, the original of which has again been lost sight of. Fortunately, the impression, which has thus come into my hands, has been prepared with great care, so that the loss of the original plates will be less felt than would have been the case otherwise.” As the plates appear to have been lost forever, they are edited here from the facsimiles accompanying Dr. Kielhorn’s article in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II, pp. 297 ff.

The plates, which are two in number, appear to be 1' 4" broad by 11½" high each and are inscribed on one side only. They have each a hole about .6" in diameter for the ring which held them together. The letters appear to have been deeply incised. The inscription consists of forty-eight lines, of which twenty-eight are inscribed on the first and the remaining twenty on the second. The writer began with closely packed lines
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¹ There are several mis-statements in this account. The figure on the seal must be taken to be that of Lakshmī. What is described as a basket before the Nandi is probably an incense pot. There must have been another like it behind the bull; see the seals of the Goharwa and British Museum plates (Nos. 50 and 54). The seal of Jayasimhadēva (PI. LII) shows a handle to these pots, which makes it plain that they are not drums as conjectured by Hultzsch (Ep. Ind., Vol. XI, p. 140). The legend had probably a visarga at the end as in the legend of other cognate plates. The mistake about the second regnal year was probably caused by the word dvitīyāyām referring to the tithi in 1.40. As regards Wilford’s reading of the date, Cunningham has remarked, ‘I suspect that the date was read by Wilford as 193 and that he afterwards forgot that he had obtained it from the plates,’ (C.A.S.I.R., Vol. IX, p.82). Vijaya-kantaka is shown by Kielhorn to be a mistake for vijaya-kataka ‘a victorious camp’. Finally, the misconception about Gāngēyadēva’s dying in a loathsome dungeon was probably caused by a wrong interpretation of v.25. See, however, Kielhorn’s remarks in Ep. Ind., Vol. II, p. 302, n. 38.
² Ep. Ind., Vol. II, p. 297.