The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c15.84

v1.c15.84

(1) *Bargaon Grant.*—The findspot of the inscription is unknown, but it was found in the possession of a cultivator of the Mauza Bargāon, in the Tejpur subdivision of Darrang district. It is written on three plates in Sanskrit, partly in prose and partly in verse. The composition is very laboured and the mechanical execution very slovenly and inaccurate. A curiosity of the inscription is the existence of plagiarisms, or at least imitations from Bāṇa's *Harṣacarita*. The seal is exactly like that of the Gauhati grant of Indrapāla and bears the legend. *Prāgjyotiṣādhipati-Mahārājādhirāja-Śrī-Ratnapāla-varma-devaḥ*. On palaeographic grounds Hoernle placed it in the earlier half of the 11th century A. D. The inscription opens with two verses in praise of Śiva's *Tāṇḍava* dance, Śaṅkarī, and Lauhitya-Sindhu. Then is given the usual genealogy from Naraka, born to Hari, in the form of a boar, and Dharā. His two sons were Bhagadatta and Vajradatta. After their descendants had ruled for a long time there appeared the *Mlecchādhinātha* Sālastambha. Twenty chiefs, Vigrahastambha, and the rest, succeeded him. When the last amongst them, Tyāgasiṁha, died without issue, the subjects elected his relative Brahmapāla of Bhauma's race. His queen was Kuladevī. Their son Ratnapāla ascended the throne of the *Narakānvayas*. The object of the grant is to record that *P.Pb.M.-Śrī-Ratnapāla-varma-deva* gave the village (*pāṭaka*) of Vāmadeva, situated in the Trayodaśa-grāma-*Viṣaya* in the Uttarakula (of the Brahmaputra ?), producing 2,000 (measures of) rice, to the Vājasaneyaka Brahman Vīradatta on the Viṣṇupadī Saṁkrānti in the 25th year of his reign.¹