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Copyright (c) 2019-2025 by Arlo Griffiths and Amandine Wattelier-Bricout.
The script used in this inscription is a variety of late eastern Brāhmī consistent with that observed in other inscriptions of the same period. Among noteworthy features are an archaic shape of
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svasti
khuḍḍī-raktamālikāyāṁ brāhmaṇottarān sa-kṣudra-pradhānādi-kuṭumbino bodhayanti
kuddālakhātādhivāsābhyantara
-mahatī-raktamālāgrahāra-cāturvvidyābhyantara-k
ya
t pūjyair mmamātīta-sapta-pañcāśad-uttara-śata-s
varddhaneya-mahāmātra-suvarccasadatt
pa-dvayam akṣaya-nīvī-dharmmeṇa śaśvat-kālopabhogy
ma-devair dugdhotikā-vāstavya-brāhmaṇānāṁ sva-puṇyābhivṛddhaye govarddhanaka-grāmo garu
tan mayā
mama govarddhanaka-grām
hāmātra-suvarccasadattena pañca-mahā-yajña-pravarttanāya mātā-pitror anugraheṇa
kara-khila-kṣetra-kulyavāpa-dvayam akṣaya-nīvī-dharmmeṇa dattaka
-puṇyābhivṛddhaye dugdhotik
-kṣetra
yataḥ Evaṁ vijñāp
Ādeśo d
yata
deśoparika-svāmicandrasyādeśo dattaḥ
kautsa-sa-gotra-vājasaneya-brāhmaṇa-nandabhūtiṣyaitat tāmra-paṭṭa-parivarttanānyatra grāme viṣayādhikaraṇa
Etad-ādeśād asmāka
mahatī-rakta-mālā-grahārika-brāhmaṇa-nandabhūti
r vvijñāpayati
Eṣāṁ dugdhotikeya-brāhmaṇānā
yataḥ Evaṁ-vijñāpitopalabdhāt
yataḥ E
khuḍḍī-rakta-mālikāyā
t-sa-viśvāsenādhika
syatha
likhitaṁ kāyastha-Āryyadāsena
na
Hail! From the Mahatī-Raktamālā followed by Brahmins
.
‘Nandabhūti, Brahmin of the Vājasaneya
In the elapsed year one hundred and fifty seven
Two
In consequence of the understanding of this information
In consequence of this Your protection for the wealth of the
.
In accordance with this instruction,
an instruction of the honorable Svāmicandra has been given to us:
To me, a
:
Nandabhūti, Brahmin of the Vājasaneya
The uncultivated land, without revenue charges and yielding no tax, in the village Govardhanaka,
which the reliable one had bought and given to me,
that has now been given by the Supreme Lord in accordance with an instruction.
The village Govardhanaka has been released by me
to those Brahmins of Dugdhotikā.
May a grant be made so that there will be a copper-plate-field elsewhere in exchange for it.
In consequence of the understanding of this information,
you will have
In accordance with this instruction,
in exchange for the permanent endowment belonging to the village Govardhanaka,
we have given a pair of
And the reverend Vyāsa has said:
The giver of land resides sixty thousand years in heaven; the one who challenges
The one who would steal land given by himself or another becomes a worm in excrement and is cooked with his ancestors.
You, Yudhiṣṭhira, most excellent of kings, must strenuously protect land previously given to brahmins. Safeguarding is even better than giving.
Yama, Varuṇa, Vāyu, Śakra, Śukra, Br̥haspati, Candra, Āditya and the Grahas: they all rejoice in one who gives land!
Written by the scribe Āryadāsa, heated by the record-keeper Manorathadāsa. Year 159, Jyeṣṭha day 8.
The inscription is dated to year 159, Jyeṣṭha day 8. As suggested to me by Michio Yano, whom I thank for his help in dealing with this issue, we may approach the conversion of this date by counting back from the Eran stone pillar inscription of year 165 (
Year: 165
Date: Āṣāḍha,
Weekday: Thursday
This, according to
Year: 484 CE
Date: June 21
Weekday: Thursday
As
Year: 159
Date: Jyeṣṭha, 8
Weekday: not specified
Thus 159 Gupta is 401 Śaka current or 400 Śaka elapsed, i.e. 478/9 CE.
We lack several parameters that would be required to be able to determine with certainty the precise Julian date. The
However, we actually do have reason to assume that the day-counting system was continuous the pûrṇimânta arrangement of the lunar fortnights is the one that was used for the Gupta years during the period in which these records were written
, then we can narrow down our conversion to Thursday the 11th of May, 478 CE.
The text comprises several levels of reported speech, and its structure is not immediately evident. Damage to the last three lines of the obverse and the first three of the reverse causes some uncertainty, but the following scheme represents my understanding of the narrative structure of the text.
Introduction: locus of emission of the charter, speakers and addressees (through line 2
Yūthapati and
Nandabhūti to Yūthapati and viṣaya council (lines 3–4
Nandabhūti to Brahmadatta and his council (line 8
Nandabhūti to Yūthapati and
Brahmadatta’s council (line 13
Nandabhūti to Yūthapati and
Brahmadatta to Svāmicandra (line 14
Yūthapati and
Svāmicandra to Yūthapati and
Brahmadatta to Svāmicandra (line 16
Nandabhūti to Brahmadatta (line 17
Yūthapati and viṣaya council to addressees (line 19
BrahmadaYūthapati and
Admonitory formulae (line 22
Colophon (line 25
As noted above, the plate is dated to year 159 in numeral signs (line 26), but — uniquely in the corpus of early land-sale inscriptions from Bengal — the date is additionally expressed in words (line 6). This date falls during the reign of Budhagupta, and it is certainly this king who is indicated with the synonymous designations paramabhaṭṭāraka and paramadeva. The latter epithet is known to me elsewhere only in the Shankarpur inscription (168 GE,
Despite the absence of explicit mention of the name Budhagupta, this king’s role in the present document is more prominent than in any other Gupta-period inscription of Puṇḍravardhana, none of which are concerned with direct royal intervention in local affairs. The present inscription for the first time provides evidence of a royal land grant in the area, and for the first time gives an impression of how the interests of individual citizens could become caught between policies of local and central administration.
Among other individuals involved in the proceedings recorded in the inscription I may mention first the
The highest provincial administrator (bhuktāv uparika-mahārāja-brahmadatte saṁvyavaharati
An officer styled
The names of plaintiff Nandabhūti and of the original donor Suvarcasadatta are not found in any other sources.
One of the most interesting novelties of this inscription is the expression
Certain examples of toponymic continuity between ancient and modern Bengal are known, such as the place name Vayigrāma which no doubt corresponds to the modern name of an epigraphic find-spot Baigram. However, because I have no first hand knowledge of the field in North Bengal, and do not have access to relevant sources such as detailed maps, I am unable at the time I am preparing this article for publication to provide any identifications of the toponyms mentioned in the inscription — Mahatī-Raktamālā, Khuḍḍī-Raktamālikā, Kuddālakhāta, Govardhanaka, Dugdhotikā and Madhyamaṣaṇḍika — with toponyms of modern Bangladesh or West Bengal.
Still, I may note that the
Our plate was issued from an
The toponym Madhyamaṣaṇḍika, found both in the seal legend and in line 14, may perhaps be connected with Ṣaṇḍadvīpa in line 6 of the plate of the time of Pradyumnabandhu.
First edited by Arlo Griffiths. Re-edited here with small improvements based on direct inspection of the plate. The text has been encoded by Amandine Wattelier-Bricout adding some readings from