|
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR
No. 75 ; PLATE LXIII
RAIPUR PLATE OF PRITHVIDEVA I : (KALACHURI) YEAR 821
THIS copper-plate was discovered somewhere in the Raipur District in the Chhattisgarh Division of Madhya Pradesh in 1945. It was sent to the Government
Epigraphist for India by the Hon. Secretary, Mahākāntāra Historical Society,
Raipur. I edit the inscription here from an excellent impression which I owe to the
kindness of the Government Epigraphist.
This is the last plate of its set which originally probably consisted of two plates.
The first plate is not forthcoming now. Such plates are usually connected by one or two
rings, but the present plate does not contain any holes for such rings. A small triangular
piece has been broken away from the upper right corner, but the aksharas so lost can be
supplied from the corresponding portion of the Amōdā plates.¹ In other respects the
plate is in a state of good preservation. It measures 10.7” broad and 6.5” high and weighs
40 tolas.
The characters are Nāgarī. The average size of the letters is . 4” except in the last
line where it is reduced to .2”. The record has been very carelessly written or incised,
and contains several mistakes of omission and commission, pointed out in the notes
to the text. As regards individual letters attention may be drawn to the following peculiarities:––The left portion of kh does not show a tail, see -sākhinē, 1.10; ṅ is without a dot,
see-bhṛiṅga , 1.15; dh does not generally show a horn on the left, see, e.g., -vudha-, 1. 1, but
in Gadādharaḥ, 1.3 it has a slanting stroke at the top.
The language is Sanskrit. The earlier portion of the record which contained
a description of the ancestors of the reigning king has been lost, but judging from the extant text, it was probably identical with the initial portion of the Āmōda plates
of the same king, Pṛithvīdēva I. The record on the present plate is partly in prose and
partly in verse. The verses are not numbered. As regards orthography, v is throughout written for b, see- lavdha-, 1.4; the dental s is used for the palatal ś is in kausika-,1.9 and vice versa in-sahaśraika-, 1.5; finally, n is used for the anusvāra in ēkavinsati-, 1.5.
The inscription refers itself to the reign of Pṛithvidēva of the Kalachuri Dynasty. He is described in lines 4-6 as Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara, the sole lord of twenty-one thousand (villages) and the ruler of the entire Kōsala country. He was a devote worshipper of
Mahēśvara and believed that he had obtained his kingdom by the grace of the god
Vaṅkēśvara. This description, which is identical with that in lines 23-25 of the Amōdā
plates, plainly shows that this Pṛithvidēva is the first Kalachuri king of the name who
ruled in South Kōsala in the second half of the eleventh century A.C.
The object of the inscription is to record the grant, by the Pṛithvidēva (I), of the
village Asauṭhā in the Apara (maṇḍala)² on the occasion of the Uttarāyaṇa-saṅkrānti. The donee was the Brāhmaṇa Jōgūka of the Kauśika gōtra , a student of the Chhandōga
or Sāmavēda, who had emigrated from Śrāvasti. The plates were granted at Ratnapura,
which was evidently the royal capital, on Sunday, the eighth tithi of the dark fortnight
of Māgha in the year 821( expressed in numerical figures only) of an unspecified era.
________________
¹ No. 7., below.
² See p. 400, n. 7, below.
Home
Page |
