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No. 14.]
PATTAN PLATES OF PRAVARASENA II.
No. 14.-PATTAN PLATES OF PRAVARASENA II.
By Prof. V. V. MIRASHI, M.A., NAGPUR. Pattan is a substantial village with a population of about 1,500 souls in the Multāi tahsil of the Betul District, Central Provinces. It lies about 10 miles south of Multāi, on the Multāi-Amrãoti road. Tradition says that the original village was turned upside down and buried underground by the curse of a Muhommadan saint Sulaiman Shah. Even now when excavations are made, large-size bricks, beads of onyx and coins are found, which also shows that the modern village is occupying an old site. The present plates were turned up in a field by the plough of a farmer in 1935. Mr. Rajaram Jain, Head Master of the local Vernacular Middle School, first brought them to notice in the beginning of the next year. Finding himself unable to decipher the record, he made fairly accurate eye-copies of it, one of which reached the hands of Mr. M. A. Suboor, of the Central Museum, Nagpur. The latter took immediate steps to acquire the plates for the Museum and thoroughly cleaned them when they were received. They are now deposited in the Museum. I edit them here as desired by Mr. Suboor.
They are five copper-plates of which the first and the last are inscribed on one side only and the remaining three on both the sides. Each plate measures 6-9" by 4" and is about .1' in thickness. The ends of the plates are neither fashioned thicker, nor raised into rims for the protection of the writing. About 1.9' from the proper right side of each plate there is a hole 1' in diameter for the ring which originally connected the plates. When the plates reached the Nāgpur Museum, the ring had been straightened, and its seal, which is a round disc, 3' in diameter, separated from it. The usual band, to which the seal must have been rivetted, is not forthcoming now. The weight of the plates is 134 tolas and that of the seal 81 tolas.
Some of the plates have cracked at the edges. Their surface, which originally was not made quite smooth, has been further damaged by rust. The letters were deeply cut. Some of them show through on the reverse, especially in the case of the first and last plates which are somewhat thinner than the rest. Many letters in the right half of 1. 45 and most of those in the two following lines have been almost obliterated by friction but can be read, though with some difficulty, from the traces left on the plate. The record consists of 47 lines. Each inscribed surface contains six lines, except the first side of the third plate which has only five lines incised on it. The seal contains the usual Vākāțaka legend in verse, inscribed in four lines.
The characters are of the box-headed variety and closely resemble those of the Tirodi plates. They include the signs for the initial short i in l 27, long i in l. 46 and for the initial short 4 in 1. 28. The only peculiarities worth noticing here are that the length of the medial i is generally denoted by a ringlet in the curve which represents its short form, but in one case by a curve turned in the opposite direction, cf. Bhagiratthy., 1. 7, and in another by a dot in the circle, cf. Sri-Pravarasēnasya, 1. 19; the mätrās for the medial ā, 2 and 7 are added at the foot of the letters m and kh; see om-Aptöryyām-Okthya, 1. 1, Afvamëdha-, 11. 2-3 and Varadākheta-, 1. 20; the medial o is cursive in Lõhanagar., 1. 20; the medial au is everywhere bipartite ; see Gautamiputra-, 11. 8-9; the subscript forms of n and » are not distinguished, while those of j and b have no notch on the left; see utpannasya, 1. 18, and suvarnna-, 1. 45; -ārijava., 1. 10, and -ayur-bbala, 1. 27; a final consonant is indicated by its small form and in some cases by a short horizontal line at the top (see Pravarapurāt, l. 1, dattam, 1. 23, etc.). The upadhmāniya occurs in 11. 15, 18, and 35 of the inscription and
1 Betul District Gazetteer, p. 256. * Above, Vol. XXII, pp. 167 f.
