History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s22.20

v3.c41.s22.20

It must be noted that documents, especially state documents, must have been drawn up with care and ceremony; for we find the land-grants inscribed on copper signed and sealed. The grantor king usually signed the deed himself using the word Svahasta or ‘my hand’. This signature must have been made originally on the Bhurja-leaf paper and then copied on the copper plate. Sometimes instead of signature, the grantor king wrote at the end the words ‘Mangalam Mahāśrih’ (auspicious and prosperous) and sometimes added his signature also as in I. A. XIV (p. 349). The land grant was proclaimed on the spot before inhabitants of the village granted and surrounding villages by special state officers; and their names are mentioned at the end in every copperplate grant. Some grants are terse as in Malwa while others are very detailed and write a great deal of the family history of the grantor as in Bengal, (there are instructions in Smṛitis as to giving this history).