The Second Plate of Ahmedabad Grant of Sīyaka (Trivedi no. 3). Metadata.
Creators: name: Trivedi, H. V.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1978
Subjects: IN060017
Sīyaka

description: The Second Plate of Ahmedabad Grant of Sīyaka (Trivedi no. 3). Metadata.

Found somewhere near Kairā, otherwise Kheda, a city and municipality in Gujarat.

Coordinates: 22°45'0"N, 72°40'48"E
description: Selected bibliography:



Trivedi (1978) 8-9, no. 3
description: THE SECOND PLATE OF AHMEDABAD GRANT OF SĪYAKA

[Vikrama] Year 1026

This copper-plate, which is the second of (apparently) the two plates making a complete grant, is stated to have been obtained by a pleader of Kairā, in the Gujarāt area of the Bombay State, and presented to Muni Jinavijayaji of the Gujarāt Purātattva Mandir of Ahmadabad, some time about 1920 A.C. How it came to the copper-smith is not known. The inscription incised on it was briefly noticed by D. B. Diskalkar, in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Third Oriental Conference, Madras, p. 304, and also in the Annual Report of the Watson Museum, Rajkot, for 1923-24, p. 14, and was transcribed by him in Purātattva (a Gujarātī Journal), Volume III, pp. 145 ff. The same scholar subsequently edited the record in the Epigraphia Indica, Volume XIX (for 1927), pp. 177-78, giving its transcript (only of 11. 1-2) in Nāgarī and a facsimile (Plate No. 28), facing p. 178. From the same facsimile it is edited here.[1]

The plate measures 33·34 cms. in length and 19·05 cms. in breadth. It has two holes, each of which shows a diameter of about ·6 cm. at the top, at a distance of 17·78 cms. from each other, which were originally meant for two copper-rings to pass through them to hold the plates together. But as is the case with the first of the plates, the rings too have never been discovered. The edges of the existing plate are fashioned thicker, to protect the writing, which is in a good state of preservation, excepting a few letters here and there, which appear to have been wholly or partially lost, probably in the process of cleaning it in a crude way, but it is not difficult to restore them.

In the lower right corner of the plate there is a representation of a flying Garuḍa facing right and depicted as a human being, except for the wings attached to his shoulders; he is holding a hooded snake in his left hand and his right hand is raised to strike it, as we generally find in the charters issued by the Paramāra rulers of Mālwā. The figure measures about 5 cms. in height and 4 cms. in breadth.          

The plate is inscribed on one side only and bears ten lines of writing. The average size of the letters is about ·6 by ·6 cm., excepting in the last line which is only 18·5 cms. long and contains letters about three times larger than the others and shows only the sign-manual of the king, which just follows the Garuḍa figure.

The characters are Nāgarī of the tenth century, slightly differing in formation from those of the Harsōlā grants of Sīyaka but showing a great resemblance to those of Vākpati-Muñja and Bhōja, which are dealt wirh just below. The technical execution indicates slovenliness; the letters are sometimes inclined towards the left but more often to the right, and the sign of anusvāra and punctuation marks are occasionally omitted. We have also instances when parts or limbs of letters are left uncarved, e.g., the horizontal stroke of ma making it appear as ga in I. 2 and the middle slanting bar of sha in purusha, in 1. 8.

To note the formation of the letters, a in asmat, 1. 4, appears to approach its modern form; dh continues to be much similar to v, e.g. in dharmmārtha, I. 3; p often resembles y, as in para-, l. 5, where both these letters appear; and r shows two varieties, viz, a vertical with its lowest extremity slightly bent to the right, as in rājabhiḥ, l. 2, and the vertical with a triangular loop in the middle, as in purushaiḥ, which appears as purupaiḥ in 1. 8. Ś shows a transitional state, with its antique form in āśvina, 1. 9 and its advanced form in vaṁśa, 1. 1.

The language of the record is Sanskrit; and, with the exception of a sentence in 11. 1-2 and the portion containing the date, the name of the dāpaka and the sign-manual of the king in the end, in 11. 9-10, the record is in verse. It contains five of the customary predicatory verses which are not numbered. In respect of orthography, we have only to state that (1) b is denoted by the sign for v, and (2) the anusvāra is as many as five times changed to p when followed by this letter, in 11. 2, 4, 6 (twice) and 8, and is wrongly marked as sh in the last three of these instances.

As stated above, the inscription is fragmentary; and owing to the loss of the first plate, the exact nature of the grant cannot be known. But it would appear that, like others, it was made to record some donation by Sīyaka, the mention of whose family and pedigree is also lost in the first plate. From the Garuḍa representation which is precisely the same as on the other plates of the Paramāras of Mālwā, he may definitely be taken to be identical with the homonymous Paramāra ruler who issued the Harsōlā grants, dealt with immediately before. The way of putting the sign-manual, along with the palaeography, also points to the same conclusion; and it is also interesting to note that the five imprecatory verses of the present charter and the name of the dāpaka Kaṇhapaika in the end, are the same as in the Dharampurī (next) grant of V.S. 1031 of his son, issued only five year later. Line 9 mentions the date, given in words only, the fifteenth of the dark half of Āśvina of the year 1026, which must evidently be referred to the Vikrama era and which for the Northern V. expired, corresponds to Thursday, 14th October, 969 A.C.[2] This date is of great historical interest, as it indicates that Sīyaka, who issued the Harsōlā grants in V.S. 1005, continued to be on the Paramāra throne at least up to V.S. 1026 and was succeeded by his son Vākpati-Muñja, some time before V.S. 1031, which is so far the latter's earliest known date.

Recording the name of the dāpaka in l. 9, as we have seen above, and with the sign-manual of the grantor Sīyaka in 1. 10, the charter comes to a close.

It is noteworthy that the present plate and the Harsōlā plates which are the earliest known records of the Paramāra house of Mālwā were all discovered in Gujarāt and the property donated by Sīyaka in the latter also existed in the same tract of Gujarāt. From this, Diskalkar has suggested that the Paramāra were connected with Gujarāt in the early days of their power, and the suggestion appears to be justified from the find of some more grants of the Paramāras and their activity in this region, as we shall see later.

No place name occurs in the existing portion of the record.

[1] After I finished writing on this inscription, I came to know that the plate has been acquired for the L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, by the efforts of its Director, Pt. D. D. Malvania, through whose kindness I had an opportunity to examine it in the original, in my visit to Ahmedabad in February, 1972. I thus had an opportunity to compare the transcript from the original, making some necessary changes. I also found that the plate is thick and the marks of engraving are not seen on the other side. It weighs 1198 grs.

[2] In the Northern V. current, Āśvina was intercalary; and for the Southern V. expired, the date would correspond to Saturday, 3rd September. 970 A.C. It cannot be verified.