Note on a Copper-plate Grant found in the Record Office of the Cuttack Collectorate.-By BÁBU RANGALÁLA BANERJEA, Deputy Collector,

Cuttack.

(With a plate.)

This document was found by me in an old box in the Record Office whilst engaged in drawing up a report on the condition of the records. The box contained a number of old deeds of grants in the Devanagari, Persian, Bengali, Marhaṭṭi and Uriyá characters; these were the remnants of a vast variety of such documents, said to have been filed by the original holders, before the Collector Mr. Kerr in 1810, when the province was settled for the first time. Up to this day applications are filed before the Collector, for a copy, or for the original, of one or other of these documents. Unfortunately no proper register has been kept with reference to these important records, and there is nothing to shew by whom the plates were filed before the Revenue authorities. The deed is inscribed on three oblong plates of copper, each measuring 8" x 6". The first plate has the inscription on one side only; the second, on both sides; and the third on the upper half of the inner side. The three were originally held together by a ring, for which the plates were pierced, the hole being eight-tenths of an inch in diameter. The ring is lost. The writing is in an antique form of the Kutila charac

ter.

The record commences with some very prurient poetry, describing the personal charms and Arcadian loves of the nymphs of Kataka, the numerousness of its majestic elephants, the shining whiteness of whose tusks overshadowed the bright autumnal moon, and the freshness and coolness of the gelid breezes which stirred the waves of the Mahánadí, and allayed the langour of its love-sick maidens.

After this exordium the record goes on to state that in the glorious city on the banks of the Mahánadí, there lived a king named Janamejaya, and from him came a lord of men called Yajáti, whose fame had spread over the three regions of the universe, and whose prowess had, without any exertion, subdued his enemies. This panegyric is immediately followed by the well-known royal titles of the Gupta dynasty, adding the word "Trikalin gádhipati" (faffufa), or “the lord of the three Kalingas"; the (त्रिक लिङ्गाधिपति), name of Bhava Gupta and that of his successor, literally "the adorer of his feet", Siva Gupta are then introduced, and after them follows the mandate of the latter to his courtiers, officers and other subjects to this effect, that he,

Siva Gupta (not Yajáti) gives the village of Chandra in the Bisaya or fiscal division of Marada in the province of Dakshina Kośala, to one Gañgapáni, the son of Divákara and grandson of Ananta Bhaṭṭa, a Bráhman of the Bháradvája clan, for so long as the sun, moon and stars would continue to shine in the firmament. The edict then enumerates a number of Sástric quotations, as usual in such records, cursing the robbers of land given in gift, extolling those who preserve and protect such gifts, and expatiating on the shortness of human life, which is said to be as unstable as a drop of water on the slippery surface of a lotus leaf. The concluding verses are an eulogy on Champati Chhinchața of the minister of war and peace of Yajáti, (not of Siva Gupta), and then comes the date of the plate and the name of the engraver Mádhava. The date is the 9th of the waxing moon in Jyeshṭha, on the ninth year or Sañvatsara of the reign of Yajáti.

The discovery and decipherment of this plate, establish two hypothetical points advanced by me in my paper on the Chaudwár plate, namely: 1st, that Orissa, or a part of it, was, during the Gupta rule, called after their mother-country" Kośala,” and 2nd, that the Kesaris of Orissa acknowledged the Guptas as the Paramount Power.

In support of the first of these two points, we have in unmistakable terms the names of Dakshina Kośalá or South Kośalá followed by that of the fiscal division of Maraḍa, and the name of the village Chandra. The last two names still exist in the district of Kaṭaka: the parganá of Hariharpur is up to this day called in common parlance Maraḍa Hariharpur, and there still exists in that parganá a village called Chandrá. The latter is written with a final long á, whereas that of the plate is a short one, but the difference is so slight, and such phonetic changes are so very common in Indian names, that it scarcely deserves a comment here. The village is still a Bráhman village of note.

As to the subordinate position of the Kesaris, the indication in the plate is plain enough. The gift is made in the name of the Guptas with the imperial and dignified designation of Mahárájádhirája, while Yajáti is simply called Mahárájá, and his ancestor Janamejaya, a rájá only. The Sástras very distinctly enjoin that it is the sovereign only who has the power of giving land in perpetuity, even Sámantas or tributary kings, when making such gifts, must take the permission of the Paramount Power. The quotations above referred to prove this beyond a question; these mention the names of Sagara and Ráma, the emperors of India, as the givers of land. This law has much relaxed in the present iron-age, despite the injunctions of the Smritis.

A new link in the royal lineages of Orissa is gained by the reading of this monument, and of another which was found under ground in a place called Puran, in Parganá Sybir. According to the Mádlápánji and the

Vañśávalis, Indra Deva or Chandra Deva reigned in Orissa in 323 or 328, A. D. Two or three years before these dates, Orissa was occupied by the Yavanas, who held it for 146 years, after which Yajáti Keśarí expelled them, and founded the Keśarí or lion dynasty. This prince was said to have reigned 52 years, and he it was who brought back the image of Jagannátha to Puri, and laid the foundation of the temple-city at Bhuvanesvara. Now, both these records are silent as to the parentage of Yajáti; but here the plates give it in plain terms, stating that Janamejaya was his ancestor, and he (Janamejaya) reigned on the banks of the Mahánadí, i. e. in Kaṭak Chaudwár. This is very probable, as the royal family was expelled from Puri by the Yavanas, who are said to have come in ships and landed near the sacred city. The astrologers of Orissa say that Chaudwár was founded by Janamejaya the great-grandson of Arjuna one of the heroes of the Mahábhárata; but this is evidently a confounding of names, for the plates simply say

"There was a king of gentle mien named Janamejaya the lotus-faced." It does not describe him to be the extirpator of the Nága race, the son of Parikshita, and the lord paramount of all India reigning in Indraprastha or Delhi. The plates simply call him a rájá, having his chief city on the banks of the Mahánadí.

If these surmises be accepted as correct, we have here then the approximate date as to the time when Chaudwár was founded, namely, the earlier part of the first century of the Christian era, for traditionally Janamejaya was its founder; and he must have been some adventurer from the north-west; the Vañśávalis are silent as to the father of Haṭakeśvar Deva, the sixth prince in ascent from Yajáti, and presumably Janamejaya must have been his progenitor, for in the Puran plate, we find Bhima Deva was also born in the race of Janamejaya, and this prince reigned in 282-319, A. D. The following is his lineage:

A. D.

143-194 Hatakeśvara Deva: reigned 51 years.

194-237

Birabhuvan or Tribhuvan Deva: reigned 43 years.

237-282 Nirmala Deva : reigned 45 years.

282-319 Bhíma Deva: reigned 37 years.

It is almost superfluous to add here, that the Janamejaya of our plates, is not the Janamejaya Keśarí of the Vañsávalis: the latter reigned between the years 754-763 A. D., about 250 years after Yajáti.

Another noticeable fact regarding the endowment mentioned in this deed, is the probability of such grants having been made by the person

under notice, for, according to the palm-leaf records, this prince was celebrated for his piety and his munificence to Bráhmans, for he it was who rescued his native land from the hands of a foreign foe, restored the worship of Jagannátha at Puri, and commenced to build the sacred fane for the worship of Mahadeva in Bhuvaneśvara.

As regards the names of places in this plate at the commencement of the declaration, the endower says that the village of Chandra, in the fiscal division (Visaya), of Marada, in the country (Desa) of Dakshina Kosala, is given in perpetuity; but with regard to the grantee, the declaration specifies that he was a Madhyadeśiya Bráhman, who came originally from the village of Srivalla, and was residing at Silabhanjapati, a village in the country of Odra (Orissa). Now the question arises, if the country. at the time bore the name of Dakshina Kośala, which included the fiscal division of Marada, and a village called Chandra; what was the site of Odra whose name occurs separately, as distinct from Dakshina Kosala? If we recall to mind, however, that the Odra of old was not conterminous with the Orissa of modern days, including the three districts of Katak, Puri, and Balasor, the difficulty disappears. Odra originally comprised very little, if any, besides the present subdivision of Khurdá. It was the original country of the Od Chásás, and the name Odra was subsequently assigned to the whole tract from the Chilká Lake to the Vaitaraní River, and included the names of Kalinga, Kośalá, and Tilkala. We have its parallel in Bengal. Different portions of that province at one time bore the names of Pundravardhana, Gauda, Barendra, Tamralipta, &c., which all gradually gave place to the single designation of Banga, though the latter was but a small portion of the main country in the delta of the Ganges.

The original country of the Bráhman who had the endowment from the royal hands of Yajáti Keśarí, calls for a few remarks. Dr. Hunter, speaking of the Bráhman migrations in Orissa, says: "The local legends and the palm-leaf records alike relate how about 500 A. D. the founder of the long-haired or lion line imported ten thousand Bráhmans from Audh and endowed them with lands around Jájpur on the sacred Baitarini river.” But the record under notice and the Chaudwár one (which is evidently a very old grant) prove beyond a question, that the North-western Brahmans must have migrated to Orissa long before Yajáti Keśarí, for the plates give the names of three generations of the grantees, the names of their original and adopted countries and villages, &c. This record shows moreover, that the migration was not restricted to Audh Brahmans only. In this case, the grantee belonged to Madhyadeśa, which, according to Manu, is the country between the Himálaya and the Vindhyan chain, bound

* Yajáti Kesarí.