|
INCRIPTIONS OF THE SENDRAKAS
No. 25; PLATE XVIII
KASARE PLATES OF ALLASAKTI : (KALACHURI) YEAR 404
THESE plates were discovered in 1937 at Kāsārē, a village thirty-four miles almost
due west of Dhulia in West Khandesh, Bombay State. They are now deposited
in the Bhārata Itihāsa Samśōdhaka Maņdala, Poona. I edit the inscription here from
excellent photographs kindly supplied by the Secretary of the Maņdala.1
They are two copper-plates measuring 7.7" in length and 5.5" in breadth. At
the top of each there is a roundish hole about .4" in diameter for two rings which hold them
together. One of them carries a conical seal with a circular face measuring 1.5" in
diameter, which has the legend Śrī-Allaśakti. The weight of the plates together
with the rings and the seal is 108 tolas. The record consists of thirty-three lines, of which
fourteen and fifteen are incised on the inner sides of the first and the second plate respectively, and the remaining four on the outer side of the first plate turned upside down.
The writing is in a state of good preservation almost throughout. The size of the letters
varies from .1" to .2".
The characters are of the western variety of the southern alphabets, and resemble
those used in the grants of the Early Gurjaras. The technical execution is very bad. The
letters are of uneven size and are carelessly formed; those on the outer side of the first
plate are more than double the average size of the rest. Besides, the aksharas originally
engraved in ll.20 and 21 were subsequently beaten in, and others much larger in size
incised over them. The earlier aksharas have, however, been left over through inadver-
tence between ll.19 and 20. Some more can be read with patience and perseverance
here and there from the traces left behind. It is not possible to say definitely when the
record was thus tampered with, or altered by authority; but the form of the letters subsequently engraved indicates that the alteration must have been made in the same period, to
which the rest of the inscription can be referred on palæographic grounds.2 As regards
individual letters, we may notice that the writer has confounded v and b in some places, see
prabhabati, 1.6, and bhagabatō, 1.27. The cursive subscript m occurs in brāmaņa- and
-brahmachāri-, both in 1.22. Both the forms of l have been used,––the northern with a
shortened right limb as in lōkānām, and lōkapālah, both in 1.9, and the southern with the
right limb bent to the left as in prithivīvallabha and kuśalī, both in 1.18. A peculiar form of
dh occurs in Āshādha, 1.32. The sign for the jihvāmūlīya is used in 11.8 and 18, and that
for the upadhmānīya in 11.10, 17 and 27. The symbols for the numbers 400 and 4 occur
in l.31.
The language is Sanskrit. Except for three verses embedded in the eulogistic
_______________________
1Since this article was written, the plates have been published by Mr. G. H. Khare in the
Sources of the Mediaval History of the Deccan, Vol. II, pp. 66 f.
2 One of the reasons for alteration was perhaps the omission of some portion of the record in
1. 20 as originally written, for the space between yathā mayā Brāhmain 1. 20 and yasya ch=āghāţanāni in
the next line is not sufficient to contain the mention of the śākhā, gōtra and name of the Brāhmaņa donee
and the name of the donated village, the boundaries of which were introduced with the words yasya
ch=āghāţanāni. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the present text is only a revised form of the earlier
grant, for it differs materially from it; there are, for instance, no boundaries of the granted village
mentioned in the later text.
Home
Page |
