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4.4
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. X.
No. 1 still shows the old forms of the four test-letters. The new form of dha appears first in No. 2, and the open forms of cha and bha in No. 3. In addition to these, the Telugu form of sa is exhibited by Nos. 4-7 and by the Amaravati pillar, which has consequently to be placed after No. 3.
In order to settle the time of the Amaravati pillar within narrower limits, the letter ha may be used. In Nos. 1-5, as in the Amaravati inscription, the carve at its right end extends below the line, while in Nos. 6 and 7 it passes very little lower than the left portion of the letter and resembles already the normal Telugu shape. On the whole Nos. 4 and 5 agree most closely vith the alphabet of the Amaravati pillar, which may therefore be placed between Nos. 3 and 6, say about A.D. 1100.
In lines 38 and 47 of the inscription, mention is made of the city of Dhanyaghața or. Dhanyaghaṭaka. For other forms of this ancient name of Amaravati, see now above, Vol. III. p. 94 and note 5; Vol. VI. pp. 85, 146 f. and 157; Vol. VIII. pp. 11 and 67 f. The town had been included in the Pallava kingdom already in the time of Sivaskandavarman of Kanchipura; see above, Vol. VI. p. 85.
No. 11-PACHAR BATE OF PARAMARDIDEVA; VIKRAMA-SAMVAT 1233.
BY ARTHUR VENIS.
The subjoined inscription is edited from two ink-impressions kindly supplied by Dr. Vogel. The historical and descriptive matter of this article is from the pen of Mr. V. Venkayya, whose unsparing courtesy I would here gratefully acknowledge. The original copper-plate on which the record is engraved is said to have been dug up some 40 or 50 years ago in Pachar, a village 12 miles north-east of Jhansi city, by one Ganeshju while excavating the foundations of his house. The exact spot is now unknown, but it was somewhere on the raised mound (consisting of the usual débris of old houses, etc.) on which the village stands. The copper-plate was in the possession of a Brahmana named Bindraban, son of Kali, one of the zamindars of the village, and he presented it to Government. The plate is now preserved in the Provincial Museum at Lucknow.
The inscription consists of a single plate with a circular hole at the bottom meant for the ring to which the king's seal must have been soldered. Neither the ring nor the seal bas, however, been traced so far. At the top of the plate-about the middle of the first four lines of the inscription- is engraved a goddess squatting, having four arms, with an elephant standing on each side and lifting up its trunk, apparently to pour water over her head. The figure is nearly the same as that found on the Banda District plate of Madanavarmadeva3 and resembles the one engraved on the first of the Ichchhawar plates of Paramardideva' and the Semra plates of the same king. In the latter, however, the goddess is squatting on a lotus. All these figures are evidently representations of the goddess Gaja Lakshmi.
1 The history of the plate and the notes on the antiquities of the villages mentioned in the inscription are taken from a memorandum received from the Collector of Jhansi.
2 In some of the other cases, where a similar figure is engraved, each of the elephants carries a water-pot in its trunk; see e.g. above, Vol. IX, Plate facing p. 173.
Ind. Ant, Vol. XVI, Plate facing p. 208.
4 Ibid. Vol. XXV. p. 205. Above, Vol. IV, Plate facing p. 166.
A similar figure is cut on some of the seals of the Katak king Maha-Bhavagupts I. (above, Vol. III. pp. 341, 345 and 346, and Vol. VIII. p. 189). The seal of the Arang copper-plate of Maha-Jayaraja (Dr. Fleet's Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. III. p. 191) and that of the Raypur plates of Maha-Sudevaraja (ibid. p. 196) bear a similar goddess; also the seal of the Khariar plates of the latter (above, Vol. IX. p. 171).
