The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c6.s1.6

c6.s1.6

Old copper-plate grants and charters are found in the possession of individuals, whose ignorance and superstitious ideas induce them to keep the fact secret, thinking they record the whereabouts of buried treasure which the decipherer of them might get hold of and appropriate. Often they are recovered from the bottom of wells and tanks, where they had been thrown for safety during some local disturbance or in times of public danger. These deeds are engraved upon thick plates of copper, which are strung together on heavy copper rings or loops whose ends are embedded in great lumps of metal bearing the seal of the grantor. They are, thus, much more lasting than they would be written upon paper or parchment, palm-leaf or birch-bark.¹