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Indian Epigraphy c11.t8: 5. Conclusion

Indian Epigraphy c11.t8

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5. Conclusion

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The concluding part of a charter is important for it often contains the date. As indicated above, its items are: (1) an exhortation, (2) the names of the officials responsible for the preparation of the document, and (3) the date and authentication, though there may be difference in different records in respect of details and some of the items may be omitted in some charters as in the other cases.

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The notification of a grant is often followed by an exhortation or admonition which was addressed by the donor to the future kings of the land whether of his own or of any other royal house, to the contemporary rulers and those who might replace him or his descendants and to his own officials, dependants and subjects including the villagers of the area where the gift land was located. It was requested that the addressees should respect the grant made by the donor. The residents of a gift village were then generally advised to pay all their dues in cash and kind regularly to the donee and to obey him. The appeal for the preservation of the grant was sometimes accompanied by passages in prose and verse referring to the transitory nature of wealth and worldly existence, to the permanent character of meritorious deeds like the gift of land, to the merit accruing to the grant of land and to the maintenance of such a grant, and to the suffering that would befall the confiscators or violators of it. Some benedictory and imprecatory verses are usually quoted in this context often as the sayings of the sages or of a particular sage or as occurring in one of the religious texts.² The number of such stanzas may be as small as one³ and as high as more than a score.¹ A commonplace among these is a saying to the effect that the maintainer of a grant derives as much merit as the donor. The grants in the South Indian languages often end in a passage like the following: ‘the kings ruling over the area should protect this righteous deed; those who do not do so will incur the sin of slaughtering a thousand cows at Vārāṇasi (i. e. Vārāṇasī).’²

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² See below, Appendix, pp. 169 ff.

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³ See, e. g., Majumdar. *Ins. Beng.*, Vol. III, p. 21, text lines 49 ff.

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¹ See, e. g., *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XII, pp. 324-25, text lines 24 ff. ; Vol. XXV, p. 59, text lines 79 ff.; cf. lines 44 ff.; *IHQ*, Vol. XX, pp. 243-44; etc.

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² Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXII, p. 174.

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Some early documents like the Damodarpur plates³ have no exhortation as such, while many charters of the early period have a simple exhortation. Thus in the Ipur plates, the king advises his own officials to collect no rent from the gift village and to see to the protection of the gift. Only one customary verse is quoted in this connection. The item is not elaborate also in records like the Sasanakota plates, in which we have a prose passage threatening the violators of the grant with the commitment of the five major sins,⁴ though this is reinforced by three benedictory and minatory stanzas ascribed in this case to Manu. The more elaborate exhortation in Dadda’s grant covers about 9 lines of writing out of the total of 30. A long passage in ornate prose in this case is followed by four of the customary verses, here ascribed to Vedavyāsa.⁵ The prose passage first states that nobody should interfere with the donee who was entitled to enjoy the gift land in whatever way he pleased, by cultivating it himself or by leasing it out to others. After this, the donor addresses the future rulers of his own lineage and others requesting them to approve of the grant and to maintain it in view of the fact that the merit of the grant is to be shared by the donor of land and the protector of the donor’s grant and that fortune is fickle and life impermanent. The violator of the grant is next threatened with the commitment of the five major sins.

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³ Ibid., Vol. XV, pp. 113ff. But they have a few benedictory verses.

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⁴ Often the minor sins are also added to this. Ancient Indian works on law recognise five major sins (*mahāpātakas*) and fiftyone minor sins (*upapātakas*). The five major sins are : killing a Brāhmaṇa, drinking liquor, theft or robbery, incest, and the company of persons guilty of such crimes. Cf. *Manusmṛti*, XI, 54; *Yājñavalkyasmṛti*, III, 227 ff.

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⁵ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVII, p. 201.

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The royal order regarding the grant of a village or land was not always issued by the king himself, but was often conveyed through an intermediary who was generally a high officer, sometimes even a prince. He is generally called Dūta or Dūtaka (literally ‘the messenger’) in North Indian records and Ājñā, Ājñapti or Ājñāpti (literally, ‘the order’) in the charters of South India. When the order emanated from the king himself, the fact is indicated in passages like ājñā svayam, ‘the order is [ from ] the donor himself’, sva-mukh-ājñā, ‘the order [is] from the [donor’s] own mouth’, etc. The words dūta, dūtaka, ājñā, ājñapti and ājñāpti are generally translated by the word ‘executor [of a grant]’,¹ though it is believed that the dignitary in question merely carried the king’s order relating to the grant to the officials by whom the charter was later drawn up and delivered to the donee.² The interpretation is supposed to be suggested by the passage sva-mukh-ājñayā utkīrṇam, ‘engraved at the verbal order of [the king] himself’, found in some records,³ and the passage svayam=ājñā noticed in certain charters is believed to mean the same thing.⁴ But, in some cases, the Dūtaka’s function is indicated by the expression praveśita suggesting that he also looked into the entry of the charter into the donee’s possession.⁵ It is also interesting to note in this connection that the Jethwai plates¹ (786 A. D.) represent Śaṅkhayya as the *Dūtaka*, but state at the same time that Vasudeva, the minister of foreign affairs, wrote the document at the order of the donatrix of the grant. It therefore appears that the *Dūtaka* was the real executor of the grant at least in some areas of the country in certain ages of history.

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¹ See, e. g., SII, Vol. I. p. 33, note 1.

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² Corp. Ins. Ind., Vol. III, p. 100, note 3; Ind. Ant., Vol. VIII, p. 79.

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³ Corp. Ins. Ind., Vol. III, p. 194. text line 23.

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⁴ In the same sense, we have sometimes svayam=ājñāpanā also (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVII, p. 36, text line 19). It may be pointed out that the designation Ājñā-dāpaka was wrongly created out of the passage svayam=ājñā dāpakaś=c=atra śrī-Rudrādityaḥ in the Ujjain plates of Paramāra Vākpatirāja (Int. Ant., Vol. XIV, p. 160, p. 161 and note 28). Similar passages are found in many of the Paramāra charters. The designation Dāpaka is sometimes believed to stand for Dūtaka. This is, however, impossible in view of the fact that sometimes the same person is represented both as the Dāpaka and the Dūta (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXII, p. 76, text line 68). The word dāpaka possibly means the real donor whose grant was ratified by the king, as already suggested above, p. 118.

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⁵ See, e. g., Bhandarkar’s List, No. 1501, stating that the grant was taken to the donee’s home (praveśita) by Keśava as Dūtaka. See also ibid., No. 1502. These records come from the Ganjam region of Orissa. Cf. also the passage svayam=ādiṣṭo rājñā dūtako=tra śrī-Bhaṭṭa-Stambhadevaḥ (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, p. 278, text lines 33-34; cf. Vol XVIII, p. 29, text lines 38-39).

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXII, p. 109, text lines 66-68.

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The item is omitted in some records like Dadda’s grant, while the Sasanakota plates have : ‘by the order from the king’s own mouth.’² The Ipur plates mention the donor’s son as the agent : ‘its order (*ājñā*) is [from the king’s] dear son, Mañcaṇṇa-bhaṭṭāraka.’³ The Svalpavelura grant⁴ has the illustrious *Mahāsāmanta* (i.e. a subordinate ruler) Aśokadeva as its *Dūtaka*.

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² Ibid., Vol. XXVII, pp. 197 ff. ibid., Vol. XXIV, p. 238.

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³ Ibid., Vol. XVII, p. 336.

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⁴ Ibid., Vol. XXIV, p. 136.

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While many charters bear no date at all, in some of them only the year is quoted. When a detailed date is given, it may come at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a charter. Thus the date of a grant may form the part of any of the three broad divisions of a charter, referred to above. Sometimes a date expressed in words is quoted again in figures. In certain cases, the date mentioned in the Notification in words is repeated in the Conclusion in figures. The year mentioned may be according to a regnal reckoning or to an era prevalent in the area and age in question. The month, fortnight and day, and sometimes also the week-day, are often mentioned in later charters. Occasionally, the date contains additional details such as the *nakṣatra*, etc. The specification of the week-day is helpful in verifying the details of a date and finding out its equivalent in a known calendar. The date of the actual grant is sometimes earlier than that of the issue of the plates on which it was recorded.⁵

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⁵ See below, Chapter VII.

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To quote a few illustrations, the Ipur plates⁶ were issued ‘in the thirtyseventh year of [king Mādhavarman’s] reign of increasing victory, the 15th day of the 7th fortnight of the hot season.’ This date refers to an old practice of dividing the official year into three seasons instead of twelve months.¹ The date of the Sasanakota plates is given as the first regnal year of the donor and the details quoted indicate the 10th tithi of the bright fortnight of the month of Phālguna. These dates cannot be verified owing to the want of the weekday and a known era. The date of Dadda’s grant² is quoted as the year 427 apparently referable to the Kalacuri era and corresponding to 675 A. D., the day being the Rathasaptamī or the 7th of the bright fortnight of the month of Māgha.

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⁶ Ibid., Vol. XVII, p. 337.

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¹ See below, Chapter VII, Section i, Subsection 4.

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² Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVII, p. 201.

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As indicated above, the occasions regarded as specially auspicious for purposes of making grants of land, etc., recorded in a large number of copper-plate inscriptions, were the full-moon, the new-moon, the solar or lunar eclipse, the vernal or autumnal equinox (viṣuva), the saṅkrānti, the vyatīpāta (when the new-moon falls on a Sunday and the moon is in certain nakṣatras, or when the full-moon falls on a Monday), ayana (the beginning of the sun’s southerly or northerly course, i.e. the sun’s appearance on or crossing of the equinoctial or solstitial point), etc. Certain grants are known to have been made on particular holy tithis like the Śivacaturdaśī (14th day of the dark half of Māgha), Damanaka-caturdaśī (the 14th day of the bright half of Caitra), etc.

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A high officer was generally entrusted with the task of drafting or writing out a charter. His name is mentioned in many cases and occasionally also his designation and his father’s name. By way of illustration, reference may be made to the Sasanakota plates which simply record: ‘this tāmra-paṭṭikā (i.e. copper-plate [charter]) has been written by Somaśarman’,³ while Dadda’s grant has: ‘[this] has been written by Durgabhaṭa’s son Saṅgulla, the Mahāsāndhivigrahika (i.e. chief officer in charge of peace and war or the minister of external affairs)'.¹ The mention of the names of the officer and his father is sometimes helpful in the determination of the chronology of their masters when the order of succession of the latter is otherwise uncertain. Reference may be made in this connection to the help rendered by such details to the elucidation of certain knotty problems in the genealogy and chronology of the Gaṅgas of Śvetaka and the Somavaṁśīs of South Kosala.²

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³ Ibid., Vol. XXIV, p. 238.

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVII, p. 201.

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² Ibid., Vol. XXV, p. 240; *IHQ*, Vol. XX, pp. 76 ff.

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Often it is difficult to interpret with certainty whether the word *likhita*, ‘written’, used in a copper-plate grant, refers to the drafting or composition of the charter or to the copying of the draft on the plates for the guidance of the engraver. This is because, besides the composition of a document and its incision on the plates, the function of writing it on the plates with ink or a pointed instrument in order to help the engraver is sometimes referred to.³ A calligraphist was entrusted with this work, though the engravers must have incised the documents without such help, in a large number of cases, directly from the drafts. Sometimes the correct position can be inferred. Thus the Salem plates of Śrīpuruṣa end with the passage: ‘this charter has been written by Guru-śiṣya, an expert in the art of painting which is the basis of all arts’,⁴ even though the names of the composer and the engraver are not mentioned in this case.

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³ In rare cases, we have references to the composer, the writer and the engraver (cf. Bhandarkar’s List, No. 156).

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVII, p. 150.

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In many records, the name of the person who engraved a document on the plates of copper is mentioned occasionally with that of his father and an epithet indicating his skill or profession. Thus the Bahmani plates⁵ of Bharatabala state: ‘and [it] has been engraved (*utkīrṇa*) by the goldsmith (*suvarṇakāra*) Īśvara’s son Mihiraka’. The engraver of copper plates was generally a goldsmith or brazier whose profession is indicated by epithets like *suvarṇakāra*, *kāṁsyakāra*, taṭṭhakāra, sekyakāra, akṣaśālin (arkaśālin, agasālē), pitalahāra, etc. In some cases, an engraver is described as a tvaṣṭṛ, śilpin or vijñānin and is endowed with high-sounding epithets indicating his skill such as varṇa-ghaṭanā-vaidagdhi-viśvakarman.¹ In certain records of the Eastern Gaṅgas and Coḷas, the writer and the engraver are stated to have received each a share in the land granted, no doubt as fees for their services.²

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⁵ Ibid., p. 143.

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¹ See, e. g., ibid., Vol. XXXII. p. 124.

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² See, e. g., ibid., Vol. XXVIII, pp. 189, 193.

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Some charters like the Neulpur plate³ of Śubhākara state that the record ‘was written by the Mahākṣapaṭalika (chief officer in charge of accounts and records) Bhogika (Jāgīrdār) Brahmadatta; heated by the Peṭṭapāla (keeper of the record-boxes) Nārāyaṇa; and incised by the Taṭṭhakāra (brazier) Eḍadatta.’ The expression ‘heated’ refers to the process of heating the plate or the ring holding the plates together for affixing the seal to it. An additional function, viz. that of authentication, is referred to in this connection in records like the Ganjam plates⁴ of the Bhañja king Vidyādhara-bhañja Amoghakalaśa, in which we have: ‘registered with a seal (lāñchita) by [the queen] Trikaliṅga-mahādevī, Mantrin Bhaṭṭa-Keśavadeva and Vārgulika (bearer of the king’s betel-box) Cācika; written by Sāndhivigrahika Stambha; engraved (utkīrṇa) by Akṣaśālin (goldsmith) Kumāracandra.’ The Nidhanpur plates⁵ of Bhāskaravarman mention the designations Ājñā, Sīmā-pradātṛ, Śāsayitṛ, Lekhayitṛ and Sekyakāra respectively meaning the executor, the demarcator of the boundaries, the composer of the document, the writer on the plates and the brazier (engraver).

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³ Ibid., Vol. XV, p. 5.

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⁴ Bhandarkar’s List, No. 1500; cf. Nos. 1501-02. Some other functions are sometimes indicated in this connection by the expressions anujñāta which probably means ‘witnessed’, anumata probably meaning ‘approved’ and praveśita, ‘executed’ (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, p. 279; Vol. XXIX, pp. 191-92).

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⁵ P. N. Bhattacharya, Kāmarūpaśāsanāvali, p. 26, text lines 132 ff. The passage seems to be wrongly interpreted by Bhattacharya.

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In the copper-plate charters of some medieval dynasties, such as the Bhauma-Karas of Orissa, there is often a stanza in the concluding part praying for the permanence of the grant or the donor’s fame resulting out of it.¹ Such a verse is sometimes also found in the eulogies engraved on stone.²

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¹ See, e.g., *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, p. 216, text lines 27-28.

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² Cf., e. g., ibid., Vol. XXXII, p. 342, text lines 19-20 (verse 21); p. 346, text line 19 (verse 26); etc.

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Copper-plate charters usually bear some indication as regards their validity and genuineness. Generally this authentication is indicated by the royal seal affixed to the top or left of single plates and to the copper ring on which the plates of multi-plate records are strung. In some cases, the donor’s signature on the original document, later incised on the plates, is also copied at the end. Thus Dadda’s grant³ concludes with the passage: *sva-hasto mama śrī-Daddasya*, ‘[This is] the own sign-manual of me, the illustrious Dadda.’ Sometimes the words *mataṁ mama*, ‘approved by me’, are used. The word *mata* here may also mean the same thing as *sva-hasta*. But the records of the Candella king Madanavarman, e.g., have *sva-hasto* = *‘yaṁ śrīman-Madanavarmadevasya mataṁ mama*.⁴ To such a sentence is in some cases added two others stating that the donor made his decree public through the language of the charter as drafted by the scribe and that the authoritative character of the grant could not be challenged on the basis of mistakes of omission and commission creeping into the text.⁵

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³ Ibid., Vol. XXVII, p. 201.

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⁴ See, e. g., ibid., Vol. XXXII, p. 123, text lines 40-41.

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⁵ See, e. g., ibid., p. 65.

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With reference to the representation of the donor’s signature on the copper-plate grants, it may be pointed out that, in most cases, the signature on the original record later engraved on plates was omitted, while, in certain medieval documents, it is not actually the donor’s name that was engraved. The copper-plate grants of the Vijayanagara kings, which are generally written in Nandināgarī, have the name Virūpākṣa written in bold Kannaḍa characters at the end, Virūpākṣa probably being the family deity of the kings in question.⁶

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⁶ Ibid., Vol. III, Plate facing p. 157.

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In many late medieval documents, we have the word *śrī* or *sahī* in place of the donor’s signature.¹ In the grants of the Sūryavaṁśī Gajapatis of Orissa, there is the curious representation of a dagger or sword in its place.²

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¹ Above, p. 125; *Or. Hist. Res. Journ.*, Vol. V, No. 1, p. 120; etc.

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² *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXIII, Plate facing p. 20; *JAS*, Letters and Science, Vol. XXIII, p. 13 and Plate.

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We have referred above to some documents containing the expression *lāñchita* which really means ‘endowed with the *lāñchana* or emblem’, i.e. ‘stamped with the royal seal’. This is generally noticed in the inscriptions of the Ganjam-Srikakulam region on the borders between Orissa and Andhra Pradesh such as the Ganjam plates³ of Vidhyādhara-bhañja referred to above and the Svalpavelura grant⁴ which was attested or registered by the king’s seal (*lāñchita*) by the queen (*mahādevī*) Śrīvāsa-bhaṭṭārikā.⁴ The same process is referred to in the East Indian records of the early medieval period, which speak of the stamping of the original document, later copied on a copper plate, by a seal bearing the representation of the royal family’s emblem.⁵

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³ Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 335-36.

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⁴ Ibid., Vol. XXIV, p. 136.

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⁵ Cf. the expressions *śrīmad-Dharmacakra-mudrayā*, *Sadāśiva-mudrayā mudrayitvā*, etc., in the early medieval charters from Bengal (Majumdar, *Ins. Beng.*, Vol. III, p. 5, text line 31; p. 125, text line 56; etc.).

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The metallic representation of the seal used in stamping the original document is generally found, as indicated above, affixed to the top or left margin of single plates or to the ring holding several plates of a charter together. These seals sometimes exhibit the representation of one or more emblems forming the royal crest or insignia or coat-of-arms. Sometimes legends take the place of the emblem, the seals of some royal families having a metrical legend without any emblem. Most of the royal seals affixed to charters, however, contain both a legend and one or more emblems.

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At the end of certain early medieval copper-plate grants of East India, e. g. those of the Senas, we have abbreviated endorsements like *śrī-ni*, *śrī-ni mahāsā-ni*, *śrī-ni mahāsām-karaṇa-ni*, etc.¹ In these endorsements, *ni* is generally taken to stand for *nibaddha*² meaning ‘registered’, though the intended expression may also be *nirīkṣita* meaning ‘seen’ (i.e. ‘approved’). *Śrī* is a contraction of *śrī-hasta* or *śrī-caraṇa* meaning ‘the king’ conventionally, while *mahāsā* or *mahāsām* stands for *mahāsāndhivigrahika* (minister for peace and war) and *mahāsām-karaṇa* for *mahāsāndhivigrah-ādhikaraṇa* (the office of the minister for peace and war). The mention of other officers is also noticed in such endorsements by their designation. Sometimes we have the endorsement as *ni anu makākṣa-ni* which seems to stand for *śrī-hasta-nirīkṣitaṃ tad-anu mahākṣapaṭalika-nirīkṣitaṃ*, ‘[It has been] seen by the king and then by the Mahākṣapaṭalika (officer in charge of records and accounts).’ Here *ni* at the beginning may also be the same as the contraction *śrīmat-karaṇa-ni* (i.e. seen by the palace staff of the king).

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¹ Cf. Majumdar, *Ins. Beng.*, Vol. III, pp. 21, 75, 88, 103, 126, etc.; above, pp. 125, 127.

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² The word *nibaddha* actually occurs, e. g., at the end of grants like the Barah plate of Bhoja (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XIX, Plate facing p. 18).

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