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Indian Epigraphy c11.t1: 1. Rāja-śāsana

Indian Epigraphy c11.t1

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1. Rāja-śāsana

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The word *śāsana* means a *rāja-śāsana* or royal charter, and *tāmra-śāsana* ‘a royal charter engraved on [a plate or plates of ] copper’.¹ Ancient Indian authorities classify *rāja-śāsana* under three heads, viz. (i) *dāna-śāsana* recording gifts, (2) *prasāda-śāsana* recording various kinds of favour, and (3) *jaya-patra* declaring the victory of one of the parties in a dispute.² Most of the records of ancient Indian rulers so far discovered however belong to the firs category.

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¹ The deeds of gift were often called *dāna-patra*, *tāmra-patra*. *śāsana-patra*, etc. The word *patra* in these compounds suggests that the records were written on *bhūrja-patra* (birch-bark sheets) or *tāla-patra* (palmyra leaves) and only some of them were later engraved on copper plates.

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² Cf. *Kṛtyakalpataru* (G. O. S.), *Vyavahāra-khaṇḍa*, pp. 157-60.

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Revenue-free lands granted by ancient Indian rulers in favour of persons, deities or religious establishments were usually endowed with a deed engraved on durable *tāmra-paṭṭa*, i.e. ‘a plate or plates of copper’,³ although we also know that such documents were sometimes incised even on stone. By *lakṣaṇā*, a *tāmra-śāsana* was sometimes called *tāmra-paṭṭa*.⁴ Often again the word indi ating the deed or charter (e.g. *tāmra-śāsana*) was applied, by *lakṣaṇā*, to indicate the land granted by means of such a charter.⁵ But, besides *tāmra-śāsana*, this modified sense of revenue-free land was in many cases indicated either by *tāmra*¹ or by *śāsana*.² The word *śāsana* in this sense is widely used not only in the medieval records of Orissa but even in modern Oriya. Numerous villages in Orissa still bear names ending with the word *śāsana*, indicating that originally they were gift villages. In early records of different parts of India, rent-free holdings under the possession of gods and Brāhmaṇas were usually called *deva-deya* or *deva-dāya* and *brahma-deya* or *brahma-dāya* respectively. In the southern part of India, the word *agrahāra* was more popular in the sense of a rent-free village in the possession of Brāhmaṇas.

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³ In the place of *paṭṭa*, we have also the use of the words *paṭṭaka*, *paṭṭikā*, *phalaka*, *phali*, *patra*, *patraka*, *patrikā*, etc., in the same sense.

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⁴ Cf., e. g., *tāmra-paṭṭa-dharmeṇa* in *Select Inscriptions*, p. 352, etc.

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⁵ Cf. ibid., p. 353, text line 24, etc.

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¹ See, e. g., *IHQ*, Vol. XXIII, p. 240, text line 33; *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, p. 308, p. 311 (text line 9-10), etc. See also *tāmraka* in the same sense (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. IV, pp. 128, 131).

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² See, e. g., *Inscriptions of Bengal*, Vol. III, p. 74, text line 43, etc. Cf. words like *paṭṭa* or *paṭṭikā* in the same sense (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXIV, p. 298, note; Vol. XVII, p. 330, note).

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Works of a few of the early writers on law, such as Viṣṇu³ and Yājñavalkya,⁴ give us some idea about the *rāja-śāsanas* or charters recording grants of land, property, etc., made by kings. According to Viṣṇu, "[The king] should grant land to Brāhmaṇas. For the information of future kings, he should also give the donees of the grant a charter written on cloth or copper-plate endowed with his own seal and with a description of the boundaries of the land, of his own ancestors and of the measurement of the area. He should not confiscate land granted by others...The king should kill persons who prepare spurious charters, and also those preparing spurious documents."⁵ According to Yājñavalkya, "After granting land or making a *nibandha*, the lord of the soil (i.e. the king) should have a document prepared for the information of noble kings of the future. He would then cause the preparation of a lasting charter writt n on cloth or copper-plate, adorned with his own seal on the outer side, with his own signature and date and with a description of himself and his ancestors and the amount of the gift and the boundaries of the gift land.’¹ As regards the preparation of a document, Vyāsa says that it should be written first by chalk on a slab or on the ground and, after the elimination of all errors, should be finally written on a leaf (or, metal tablet).²

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³ In the matter of the *rāja-śāsanas*, Viṣṇu agrees with Yājñavalkya, although the former is assigned to a later date (cf. *Camb. His. Ind.*, Vol. I, p. 279).

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⁴ The *Yājñavalkyasmṛti* is assigned by scholars to a date about the fourth century A.D. (ibid., pp. 279 f.)

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⁵ See III, 57-59; V, 9-10.

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¹ Cf. II, 318-20.

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² Vyāsa quoted in the Śabdakalpadruma says: Pāṇḍu-lekhyena phalake bhūmau vā prathamaṁ likhet | ūṇ-ādhikaṁ=tu saṁśodhya paścāt=patre niveśayet || The same authority as quoted in the Kṛtyakalpataru (op. cit., pp. 157-58) says: Rājñā tu svayam=ādiṣṭaḥ sandhivigraha-lekhakaḥ | tāmra-paṭṭe pate v=āpi pralikhed=rāja-śāsanam || Sthānāṁ-anupūrvi ca deśaṁ grāmam=upāgatān | Brāhmaṇāṁś=ca tathā c=ānyān=mānyān=adhikṛtān likhet | Kuṭumbino=tha kāyastha-dūta-vaidya-mahattarān | Mleccha- caṇḍāla-paryantān=sarvān=sambodhayann=iti || Mātā - pitror=ātmanaś=ca puṇyāya=amuka-sūnave | dattam may=āmukīyāya dānaṁ sabrahmacāriṇe || Candr-ārka-sama-kālīnaṁ putra-pautr-ānvay-āgatam | anacchedyam=anāhāryaṁ sarv-ābhāvya-vivarjitam || Dātuḥ pālayituḥ svargaḥ hartur=narakam=eva ca | jñātaṁ may=eti likhitaṁ tadā vyakt-ākṣarair=yutam || Abda-māsa-tadardh-āho rāja-mudr-āṅkitaṁ tathā | anena vidhinā lekhyaṁ rāja-śāsanaṁ likhet || The word ābhāvya means ‘tax’, although it is wrongly quoted and explained in the Kṛtyakalpataru.

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³ As regards the marking of boundaries, Manu (VIII, 250-51) says, Aśmano=sthini go-bālāms=tūṣān=bhasma-kapālikāḥ | kariṣam=iṣṭak-āṅgārān=charkarā bālukās=tathā || Yāni c=aivaṁ-prakārāṇi kālād=bhūmir=na bhakṣayet | tāni sandhiṣu sīmāyām=aprakāśāni kārayet || According to Yājñavalkya (II, 151), Nayeyur=ete sīmānam sthal-aṅgāra - tuṣa - drumaiḥ | setu-valmīka- nimn-āsthi-caity-ādyair=upalakṣitām || while according to Bṛhaspati, prakṣipya kumbheṣu=etāni sīm-ānteṣu nidhāpayet. See Select Inscriptions, pp. 345 (text line 19), 363 (text lines 15-16), etc.

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The Mitākṣarā, a medieval commentary on the Yājñavalkyasmṛti by Vijñāneśvara, also furnishes some valuable information regarding the preparation of royal charters. According to this work, the passage ‘on cloth or copper-plate’ and the word ‘date’ in the original should be explained respectively as ‘on cotton cloth, copper plate or copper tablet’ and ‘the expired year of the Śaka kings and the [regnal] year [of the donor], the solar and lunar eclipses, etc.’

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The information drawn from the above sources may be summed up as follows : (1) After making a grant of land, etc., the king caused the preparation of a lekhya or document for the guidance of future kings of the land. (2) It was then written on a piece of cloth or engraved on copper plates or a copper tablet, and thus was made a permanent charter. (3) It contained a description of the king and three of his immediate predecessors and of the land granted together with its boundaries and measurement; it was also endowed with the king's seal, signature and date. (4) There is no explicit statement regarding the donee by Yājñavalkya, though it is supposed that the donee is implied in his language and that his name should also be written in the charter. (5) A high official was entrusted with the drafting of a document according to the Mitākṣarā. As will be seen below, the above characteristics are noticeable in the copper-plate charters discovered in different parts of India, though the paucity of early charters may suggest that many of them were written on cloth which is an easily perishable material.

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Very interesting light on the nature of the rāja-śāsana is also thrown by the section entitled lekhya-prakaraṇa in Yājñavalkya’s work, though the verses deal with bonds. Vijñāneśvara points out that, of the two kinds of documents called śāsana and jānapada, the section deals with the latter, although he admits that there was no great difference between the two varieties. From this section we learn that the year, the month, the fortnight, the day, the names [of both the parties], the case, gotra, sabrahmacārika, the fathers’ names [of both the parties] and similar other details were specified in the documents. It is also said that a duplicate document could be prepared when the original one was left in a distant land or was illegible, lost, damaged, stolen, broken, burnt or torn.¹ The jānapada documents were evidently not written on durable material. Ancient Indian authorities also dealt with the problem of spurious charters and the ways of distinguishing such documents from genuine records.²

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¹ We have some instances of the issue of a duplicate rāja-śāsana (cf. the Nidhanpur plates of Bhāskaravarman in Kāmarupaśāsanāvali, pp. 1 ff.). See Ep. Ind., Vol XXX, p. 290; Vol. XXXI, p. 267; above, p. 97.

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² Cf. Kṛtyakalpataru, op.c it., pp. 161 ff

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Treatises like the Lekhapaddhati and Lokaprakāśa³ quote some specimens of different types of documents as they were written in the late medieval period respectively in Gujarat and Kashmir.

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³ See Gaekwad Oriental Series, No. XIX and Appendix IV in the work. See also the Patrakaumudī noticed by Jayaswal in A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in Mithila, Vol. II, pp. 12-13. Cf. above, p. 88.

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Metallic plates or tablets, especially of copper, are known to have been used in India for writing documents since very early times. The Sohgaura (Gorakhpur District, U.P.) inscription¹ of the 3rd century B. C. which is written on a bronze tablet, the Taxila copper-plate inscription² (21 A.D.) of Patika and the Kalawan (near Taxila) copper plate inscription³ of 77 A. D. are some of the early instances of this practice.⁴ But these are not copper-plate charters of the proper type described above.

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¹ Select Inscriptions, pp. 85-86.

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² Ibid., pp. 120-21.

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³ Ibid., pp. 127-28. Cf. above, p. 74.

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⁴ For early inscriptions on vases of copper and silver and other metallic objects, see ibid., pp. 84, 109, 129 f.. 131, etc. See also above, pp. 74 ff.

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The earliest copper-plate charters of the usual type, so far discovered, come from the southern areas of India. They are the Prakrit charters of the Pallava kings of Kāncī, viz. the Mayidavolu and Hirahadagalli plates of Śivaskandavarman,⁵ both assignable to the middle of the 4th century A.D. The Gunapadeya plates⁶ of Pallava Skandavarman's time and the Kondamudi plates⁷ of Jayavarman, both from the Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh, the Basim (Akola District, Bombay State) plates⁸ of Vākāṭaka Vindhyaśakti II and the earliest charters⁹ of the Śālaṅkāyanas of Veṅgī should have to be assigned to the same century. In the north, the Dhanai-daha (Rajshahi District, North Bengal) plate,¹⁰ issued in the Gupta year 113 (433 A. D.) during the reign of the Gupta emperor Kumāragnpta I, is one of the earliest copper-plate grants as yet discovered. But a recently discovered plate of Īśvararāta, a ruler of the Kathiawad region, appears to belong to the end of the 4th century A.D.¹¹

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⁵ Select Inscriptions, pp. 433 ff.; 437 ff., Suc. Sāt. L. Dec., pp. 165ff.

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⁶ Select Inscriptions, pp. 443 ff.

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⁷ Ep. Ind., Vol. VI, p. 315; Suc. Sāt. L. Dec., pp. 41 ff.

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⁸ Select Inscriptions, pp. 406 ff.

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⁹ Ep. Ind., Vol. IX, pp. 51 ff.; Vol. XXXI, pp. 1 ff.; Suc. Sāt. L. Dec., pp. 63 ff.

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¹⁰ Select Inscriptions, pp. 280 ff. Samudragupta's Gaya and Nalanda plates (ibid., pp. 262 ff ) are spurious.

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¹¹ See Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXIII, pp. 303 ff.

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But some of the West Indian cave inscriptions belonging to the Kṣaharāta and Śātavāhana rulers of the 2nd century A.D. were undoubtedly copied on the cave walls from original *rāja-śāsanas* on cloth or copper plate.¹ Thus the Nasik cave inscriptions² of Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi (c. 106-30 A.D.), dated in his regnal years 18 and 24, another epigraph³ at the same place belonging to the reign of Nahapāna and dated in 120 A.D. and several others of the same type engraved on the walls of the excavated caves in Western India are copies of original *rāja-śāsanas*. These records resemble the known specimens of early copper-plate grants and generally agree with the specifications of the ancient legal writers discussed above.⁴ The records of Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi actually refer to themselves respectively as a *paṭikā* (regarded as standing for Sanskrit *paṭṭikā* meaning a copper-plate grant)⁵ and a *lekhya* (document) while the epigraph of Nahapāna’s reign refers either to the engraving of the document on *phalakas* (plates or tablets [of copper]) or to the preservation of such documents in the store-house of *phalakas*.

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¹ *Proc. IHC.*, Lahore, 1940, pp. 52 ff.

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² *Select Inscriptions*, pp. 191 ff.; 193 ff.

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³ Ibid., pp. 157 ff.; cf. above, p. 99 and note 2.

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⁴ The minor differences that are noticed in this regard are also found in the charters of different ages, of different parts of the country and of different ruling families. See the Section on the structure of the *rāja-śāsanas* below.

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⁵ The word *paṭikā* may also be derived from *paṭa* meaning ‘cloth’, though its derivation from Sanskrit *paṭṭikā* is generally accepted by scholars. See above, p. 67.

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The above Kṣaharāta and Śātavāhana records and others of the same type in the caves of Western India are thus *rāja-śāsanas* originally engraved on copper plate. The system of engraving royal charters on copper plates is therefore not later than the beginning of the second century A.D. It is possible to think that it was the ascetic donees, and not the donors, who were responsible for copying the charters on the walls of the caves in which they lived either for a considerable period of time or only for the rainy season. The aim was evidently to have a charter which, unlike copper-plate grants, could not be lost. The copying therefore may not have been done exactly when a charter was issued and the records may have been engraved on the walls several at a time without special regard to their chronological order. Their nature thus seems to resemble that of the medieval votive inscriptions engraved on the walls of temples of renown.¹

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXX, p. 19, note 7; p. 159; Vol. XXXIII, p. 239.

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We have many later instances in which royal grants were copied on temple walls or stone slabs. Among such records found in North India, the Shergadh stone inscription,² originally affixed to the wall of the local temple of the god Somanātha, is a careful copy of a regular charter of the Paramāra king Udayāditya (c. 1060-87 A.D.) of Malwa recording the grant of a village made by the king in favour of the said deity. Of the many well-known instances from South India, mention may be made of the Gadag inscription³ (1192 A.D.) of the Hoysala king Vīra-Ballāla II, the Belgaum inscriptions⁴ (1204 A.D.) of Raṭṭa Kārtavīrya IV and others.

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² Ibid. Vol. XXIII, pp. 132-36.

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³ Ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 89 ff.

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⁴ Ibid., Vol. XIII, pp. 16 ff.; pp. 27 ff.

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