WESTERN CHALUKYAS

10. Among the copper-plates of the year’s Collection is an interesting record which comes from the Dharwar distrcit (No. 1 of App. A). It belongs to Mr. Parasappa Chauḍki of Tumminkaṭṭi, a village in the Ranibennur taluk of the district. The document consists of a set of three copper plates measuring roughly 9” long by 4 ¾” high with a ring-hole of ½” in diameter near the proper right margin. Through this hole passes a ring of about 3 3/8” in diameter, the ends of which are soldered into the bottom of an oval seal measuring 1 ¼” by 1” on the surface, which carries a relief figure of what looks like a boar facing the proper left of the seal below the representations of the Sun and the Crescent. The first and the last plates of the set bear inscription on their inner sides while the middle has writing on both the sides. The plates do not show signs of proper dressing. The letters are damaged on almost all the plates and the damage by way of layers having peeled off is reported to have been caused by an ignorant attempt made to clean the accretions by exposing them to fire. The whole set with the ring and the seal now weighs 145 tolas.

   The document by itself is not of much historical importance but forms an addition to an interesting series of forgeries of the period of which we have already known some examples. It purports to belong to the reign of a Chāḷukya king named Vīra-Noṇamba-Chakravartin who was ruling from Kalyāṇapura and issued the grant in the Śaka year 327. There is no attempt at any elaborate introduction by way of invocatory verses, but on the other hand the record commences with the oft-quoted minatory verse beginning with ‘akarasya’ etc. Then it directly proceeds in pose with the business portion starting with the description of the king in the style of the later Western Chālukyan stone-inscriptions. The wording is rather indifferent, being a careless jumbling of Kannaḍa epithets and faulty Sanskrit and Marāṭhi expressions. The object of the deed is to record the sarvanamasya gift of land together with some regal insignia made to some chief, who was the king’s elephant-keeper, and to the deities of the village called Usana-grāma, situated in the Noṇambavāḍi-32,000 country on Monday, the pūrṇamāsi-tithi in the dark fortnight (!) of the month Vaiśākha in the cycle year Parābhava corresponding to the Śaka year 327. On the face of it this date is impossible for the record which is engraved in late Nāgarī of the 11th and 12th centuries A.D.

   It would not be helpful to leave the record at that, with the mere assumption that it is a forgery. On the other hand we must attempt to trace the forgery to its origin and try to understand its genesis. We have already stated that it belongs—rather claims to belong—to the Chāḷukya king Vīra-Noṇamba-Chakravarti. The king’s name, the style of the record and the impossible date establish it as a sister forgery to the Bangalore plates of the same king dated nearly 40 years later i.e. in Śaka 366 (published in Indian Antiquary, Vol. VIII, p. 89). The characters of both the records are almost alike though the wording varies īn some places. In the Bangalore plates the donee receives some lands along with some regal insignia, as in the present case, which among other things, mentions the bugle (kāhala) called Chaladaṅka-Rāma. [In passing it may be pointed out that this epithet Chaladaṅkarāma occurs as part of the name Tribhuvanamalla Chaladaṅkarāva (i.e. Chaladaṅkarāma) Hoysaḷaseṭṭi in an epigraph of Śaka 1051 Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa (No. 68)].

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