Indian Epigraphy c9.t9.16

c9.t9.16

The plates of copper were fashioned with hammer by the brazier and some of them still exhibit traces of hammering. A number of the plates are small, thin and light while others are big, thick and heavy. The Taxila plate of Patika is so thin that it was found bent double and it weighs only 3½ ounces. The size of a plate depended on factors like the length of the writing to be engraved (i.e. the nature of the draft used in a particular area), the size of the letters in the copy prepared by the clerk, etc. The smiths made the plates according to the size of the clerks' drafts received by them. When the drafts were written on palmyra leaves, the plates were narrow and long, while, for copying drafts on birch bark, the plates required to be much broader, sometimes almost square. The plates used by the Vijayanagara kings were shaped like stone stelae. The copper-plate grants of the kings of the Maitraka dynasty of Valabhī clearly show how the size of the documents increased with the increase in the length of the eulogies. The eulogies in the records of the later members of the family had to mention a much larger number of predecessors.