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No. 27. ]
SIX SAINDHAVA COPPER-PLATE GRANTS FROM GHUMLI.
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(V. 8) When his father went to heaven, he, renouncing for fear of (incurring the sin of) parivitti1 Royal Fortune who had offered herself to him, presented her to his elder brother. (V. 9) You are the first among my sons, the lord of my kingdom, my right arm, such a victory incarnate in all regions, (nay), my very self' He who was thus graciously addressed by the lord of Kuntala, is adorning the southern direction, having attained that very position.
(V. 10) When he showers gold and arrows on (his) supplicants and enemies, they giving up their treasure of poverty and forces (respectively), wait upon him without any apprehension.
(V. 11) There is not that country, that village, that community, that assembly (or) that (place) where Jagaddēva is not praised day and night.
(V. 12) That king, named the illustrious Jagaddēva, has granted by means of a charter (and) as a source of religious merit, the village Dongaragrama to the Brahmana Srinivasa (to be enjoyed by him) as long as the moon and the sun will endure.
(Vv. 13-14) In that Dongaragrāma granted by him, Srinivasa, the abode of learning and character, (who) is the son of Srinidhi, the store of blessings, has caused (this) temple of Siva to be constructed for the attainment of religious merit by (his) father. May it, faultless as it is, serve to adorn the earth until (the time of) world-destruction.
(Lines 7-8) He who would desire to appropriate after causing obstruction and snatching away what has been given by Srinivasa to the god in this village, would be contaminated by the five great sins!
In the Saka year 1034, the cyclic year Nandana, on the full-moon day of Chaitra, this charter has been written. The scribe is Viśvasvamin. (In the year) 1034 (on the fifteenth tithi of Chaitra), also in figures 15.
No. 27.-SIX SAINDHAVA COPPER-PLATE GRANTS FROM GHUMLI.
BY DR. A. S. ALTEKAR, BENARES HINDU UNIVERSITY.
The six copper-plate grants, which I am editing here, were discovered early in 1936 near Ghumli in the Nawanagar State of Kathiawar in the course of digging on the road side. They were briefly noticed by the Government Epigraphist for India in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India for the year 1936-37, pp. 102-05. M. M. Shastri Hathibhai Harishanker has published their text along with brief notes in his Report on the Twelve Copper-plate Inscriptions found at Ghumli. Dr. N. P. Chakravarti, the Government Epigraphist for India, very kindly sent to me a good set of the ink-impressions of these plates with a request to edit them in the Epigraphia Indica. I am doing so accordingly. Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra, Assistant Superintendent for Epigraphy, made to me a number of valuable suggestions in connection with the present paper, which have been incorporated in it. I am grateful to him for his kind help.
The twelve copper-plates found at Ghumli contain the six records edited here, A consisting of three plates, C of one, and B, D, E, and F of two each. All of them record grants made by the rulers of the Saindhava family, which is at present known to have been ruling at ancient Bhūtāmbilika or modern Ghumli from c. 740 to 920 A. D. The original name of the capital, which is uniformly spelt as Bhūtāmbilika in our records, used to be popularly
1 I.e. marrying before an elder brother marries. A man who did so was believed to go to hell.
