Indian Epigraphy c10.s5: 5. Preservation of Copper-plate Grants
Indian Epigraphy c10.s5
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5. Preservation of Copper-plate Grants
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Copper-plate grants were very valuable documents for the donees and their descendants, since their loss or destruction rendered the revenue-free holdings, created by them, ordinary rent-paying lands unless fresh charters were issued in the place of the old ones. There are instances of charters written on plam leaves or engraved on copper plates being destroyed by fire and the re-issue of copper-plate grants by the later rulers of the territories in question.² The donees therefore preserved the documents received from the donors generally with special care.
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² See the Kurud plates of Narendra (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXI, p. 267) and the Dubi and Nidhanpur plates of Bhāskaravarman (ibid., Vol. XXX, p. 290). See below, p. 106.
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Monks dwelling in artificial caves sometimes engraved the texts of the copper-plate grants, received by them in respect of rent-free lands, on the walls of the caves.³ In the ruins of the ancient city of Valabhī at modern Wala in Kathiawar, copper-plate charters have been found immured in the walls or foundations of the houses of the donees or their descendants, while in many places the charters have been dug out from the fields, to the donation of which they refer, usually hidden in small caches made of bricks.⁴
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³ See *Proc. IHC*, Lahore, 1940, pp. 54 ff.; below. p. 106.
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⁴ Cf. Bühler, *Indian Palaeography*, pp. 99-100.
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Sometimes several documents were preserved together. An urn containing four sets of copper plates was dug out from the ground near the foot of a tree at the village of Andhavaram in the Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh.⁵ The grants were issued by different rulers of different ages to different donees and may have been interred in the ground when the owners left the village at one time on an occasion like pilgrimage. The sets of plates were suspended by means of an iron rod passing through their seal-rings, which was inserted across the deliberately broken rim of the urn having a wide circular mouth. The urn was covered by a hemispherical lid and the plates, kept inside it in paddy-husk, were found in a good state of preservation.¹
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⁵ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 175 ff.
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¹ For the preservation of copper plates in paddy-husk, see also *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVII, p. 268 and note 2. The interment of copper-plate grants may be compared to that of coins. In the pre-British days, life and property were generally insecure and hiding one's valuables under the earth was a common practice because there were no banks of the modern type.
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Sometimes the plates were preserved in a specially made stone casket or coffer. Thus the Kalegaon plates² of Yādava Mahādeva were found inside a stone box made of two slabs of stone firmly joined together. The upper slab measures 22 inches by 15½ inches by 7 inches and has a hollow (4½ inches in depth) curved in the inner surface of it while the lower slab measures 24 inches by 16½ inches by 7 inches with a similar hollow (1½ inches deep) in its upper surface. The set of three plates, each measuring 15 inches by 11 inches by ¼ inch and together weighing 1075 tolas, was found inside the box which was dug out of the ground.
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² See ibid., Vol. XXXII, pp. 31-32.
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There are instances of copper-plate grants being discovered at localities far away from their places of issue. Thus the Kamauli plate³ of Vaidyadeva is a record which was issued by a ruler of Assam in respect of a gift of land in favour of a Brāhmaṇa, but was discovered at a place near Banaras. It is possible that the donee or one of his descendants in this case settled at Banaras at a later date, although it is difficult to determine whether he was still enjoying the gift land or had sold it out. If the land had been sold out, the plate was only of some sentimental value to him. It is also not impossible that he went to Banaras on pilgrimage and carried the plate with him as a valuable possession, but could not return home owing to sudden death.
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³ See Bhandarkar's List, No. 1636.
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The originals of the grants from which the plates were prepared, probably written on perishable material, must have been preserved in the records office of the kings. As we have seen, an officer called Akṣapaṭalika, very often mentioned in inscriptions, is regarded by some as an Accountant and by others as a Record-keeper,¹ though he may have served in both the capacities. The store-room of original grants in a king's Akṣapaṭala department is probably called the phalaka-vāra (literally, ‘the store-house of plates’) in a Nasik inscription² of the 2nd century A. D.
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¹ Stein, Rājatar., trans., V, 249, 397 and notes; above, p. 86.
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² Cf. Select Inscriptions, p. 160.
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A smaller officer called Pustapāla or Pustakapāla, literally ‘the keeper of books (i.e. records)’, is mentioned in such records as those of the Bhuama-Karas of Orissa.³ Another officer mentioned in the records of the same area is the Peṭapāla, Peṭṭapāla, Peḍāpāla, etc. (literally ‘the keeper of the boxes [containing records]’) who apparently served under the Pustapāla.⁴
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³ Cf. Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIX, p. 88, text line 20. For the earlier mention of the Pustapāla in Bengal records of the Gupta age, see Select Inscriptions, p. 285, text line 10: etc.
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⁴ Bhandarkar’s List, No. 2041 (Peṭapāla). Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, p. 216, text line 21 (Peṭṭapāla); Vol. XV, p. 5, text line 3; (Peḍāpāla), etc.