The Age of the Imperial Guptas c6.83

c6.83

The fourth plate from Faridpur belongs to the reign of the Emperor Samācāra. It records that during the government of the Viceroy, the *Antaraṅga* and *Uparika*, Jīvadatta in the New Avakāśikā, when a *Viṣayapati* named Pavittruka was in charge of the *Maṇḍala* of Vāraka, one Supratika-svāmin applied for the sale of some land for the establishment of certain Vedic ceremonies and accordingly some land was given to this Brāhmaṇa. The inscription on the fourth plate does not record a transfer but a free gift of land.² The material difference in informations to be derived from the inscriptions on the Damodarpur and the Faridpur plates is enormous. The Damodarpur plates show a well-ordered civil government in which the Chief officer of a district was associated with the headclerk of the government offices and the three principal leaders of the mercantile community, the *Nagara-śreṣṭhin*, the *Prathama-Kulika*, and the Caravan-leader. In the majority of cases report on the land to be transferred is submitted by a board of three Pustapālas. In the four Faridpur plates the only officer who is mentioned as such is the headclerk, now styled a *Jyeṣṭha-Kāyastha* instead of *Prathama-Kāyastha*. Even this officer is omitted in the fourth plate and his place taken by a *Jyeṣṭh-ādhikaraṇika* named Dāmuka.