A hoard of copper-plates: Patronage and the early Valkha State

Revaluation of Tradition in the Ideology of the Radical Adivasi Resistance 1

A Hoard of Copper Plates: Patronage and the Early Valkha State

Suchandra Ghosh1

Abstract

The horizontal spread of the state society accompanying the institution of land grants leading to the formation of a monarchical state polity is frequently witnessed during c. 300–600 CE. Among the many new and small kingdoms which surfaced during the time of the Guptas was the kingdom of Valkha in Central India located on the banks of the Narmada. The kingdom, as it appears from their land grants, was situated on both sides of the Narmada river, at the southern periphery of the important Gupta strongholds in central India (Airikin. a, Eran) and beyond the northern frontier of the Vakat.akas kingdom to the south. In case of the Valkha kingdom, it appears that in the process of transi-tion from a pre-state to a state, it can be placed in a category where, with the formation of the kingdom around the mid-fourth century CE, Valkha has just transcended the pre-state stage and could be placed in the genre of an early state. We seek to understand the early character of the Valkha state through the lens of twenty-seven copper plates found together in a hoard and five others published in a scattered manner. It goes to the credit of K.V. Ramesh and S.P. Tewari who edited the plates in 1990 and revealed the names of the rulers of Valkha. Through a reading of these charters we seek to understand the emer-gence and growth of the Valkha state. Due to the donations, the donee assumes a significant position and so the nature of patronage of the Valkha rulers becomes central to our study.

KeywordsState society, patronage, Valkha kingdom, brahmadeya, agrahara, panchamahayajna

Historians of the state, society and economy in India from 600 to 1300 CE have extensively drawn upon and investigated copper-plate charters for their

1 Associate Professor, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India.

Article

Studies in History31(1) 1–29

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Corresponding author:Suchandra Ghosh, 1/3 Gopal Chandra Bose Lane, Sinthee, Kolkata 700 050, India. E-mail: [email protected]

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Rajat Sanyal

Sticky Note

Please read CE for the misprint GE throughout the Appendix. For e. g., "(320+47= 367GE)" should be read as "(320+47= 367CE)" and so on.

2 Studies in History 31(1)

study. In other words, copper-plate charters recording the king’s grant of villages or land to brahmanas or temples are one of the basic historical sources of early medieval India. With these charters numerous revenue-free settlements (agrahara, brahmadeya, devadana, etc.) were created in almost every part of India. These charters are markers of significant shifts in polity, economy and society. In the pre-600 CE period too, land grants inscribed on copper plates form the bulk of evidence for the study of polity, economy and society. The horizontal spread of the state society accompanying the institution of land grant frequently resulted in the formation of a monarchical state polity from c. 300 to 600 CE. State formation in regions without prior experience of the state was a continuing process.2 We have profusion of donative records, available from disparate regions of India dur-ing five centuries from c. 200 BCE to 300 CE.3 The donors were, however, mainly persons from occupational and professional groups, mostly merchants and women who donated largely to Buddhist and Jaina establishments. From around c. 300 CE, the nature of the donor as well as the pattern of patronage underwent changes. As mentioned earlier there was a spurt in the number of monarchical powers not only in the Ganga valley or in the deltas of the Godavari and the Krishna, but also in remote areas or fringe zones. Land grants to brahmanas and the genesis and growth of temple-building activities, the two perceived markers of patronage since 300 CE, can be appreciated in the context of the need to legitimize the emerging political structure and society.4 Rulers derived their legitimation through patronage to brahmanas, local deities and religious centres among others.

The period from c. 300 to 600 CE saw the beginning of royal elites who, in order to supplement their political control, engaged in construction of genealogies and giving out their resources to brahmanas, temples and monasteries. Among the many new and small kingdoms which surfaced during the time of the Guptas was the kingdom of Valkhā in Central India, located on the banks of the Narmada. During this period and after, a horizontal spread of state society has been sug-gested implying transformation of pre-state polities into state polities.5 In the case of the Valkhā kingdom, it appears that in the process of transition from pre-state to state, it can be placed in a category where with the formation of the kingdom in around the mid-fourth century CE, Valkhā has just transcended the pre-state stage and could be placed in the genre of an early state. Claessen and Skalnik divided the early state into three types, the inchoate, the typical and the transitional, each

2 B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Political Processes and the Structure of Polity in Early Medieval India’, in The Making of Early Medieval India (2nd edition) (New Delhi: Oxford, 2012), 211–12.3 For donative records, among others, see H. Luders, Inscriptions of Mathura, ed. K.L. Janert (Gottingen, 1961); H. Luders, ‘A List of Brahmi Inscriptions up to AD 400 with the Exception of Those of Asoka’, being a supplement to EI X, 1912.4 For a discussion see B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Historical Context of the Early Medieval Temples of North India’, in Studying Early India (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003), 153–71; and B.P. Sahu, ‘The Early State in Orissa, From the Perspective of Changing Forms of Patronage and Legitimation’, in The Changing Gaze (New Delhi: Oxford, 2013), 129–51.5 B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Political Processes’, 212.



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having certain dominant features.6 In the following pages an attempt would be made to ascertain the category where one can situate the Valkhā state.

We seek to understand the early character of the Valkhā state through the lens of twenty-seven copper plates found together in a hoard and five others published in a scattered manner. Like most other hoards, the story of their discovery falls in the category of a chance find. While cultivating a field in a settlement known as Risavala, near present Bagh (Madhya Pradesh), in 1982, the hoard was found with the only exception being that in lieu of coins which are mainly discovered in hoards, here we had a huge copper container, covered with a copper lid. On uncovering the cover, a hoard of twenty-eight (one was broken) neatly arranged copper sheets, which were fully covered with patina as well as soil, saw the light of day. It goes to the credit of K.V. Ramesh and S.P. Tewari who edited the plates in 1990 and revealed the names of the rulers of Valkhā.7 Before the discovery of these twenty-seven copper plates, five other copper plates of rulers of this region were discovered and published but scholars could not locate the kingdom of Valkhā.8 These plates belonged to Bhulunda, Svāmīdāsa and Rudradāsa. In the hoard the other rulers are Bhaṭṭāraka and Nāgabhaṭa. It is clear that the first ruler Bhulunda had a non-Sanskritic name (use of hard sounds in the name is instructive) while the others used Sanskritized names such as Svāmīdāsa, Rudradāsa and so on. The plates do not give us any clue to genetically relate these rulers and this belies any prospect of formation of any dynasty. The only common factor relates to the name of the kingdom. Thus, any sort of conjecture is possible. On the basis of the similarity in the recording of these charters we may imagine a loose connection. Their inscriptions are in all probability dated during the Gupta reckoning and they acknowledge the superiority of the paramabhaṭṭaraka, most probably the Gupta emperor, and use a less grandiose title maharaja. All the charters begin with paramabhaṭṭaraka – pad = anuddhyato. This expression also figures in the inscriptions of many of the feudatories of the period.9 In a study of courtly culture in early medieval India, Daud Ali remarks ‘the focus on feet in courtly circles developed into a rich language of power’. He has shown that this terminology spread to kingdoms throughout the subcontinent in a huge number

6 Henri J.M. Claessan and Peter Skalnik, eds, The Early State (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978), 640–41. An inchoate state had limited trade and markets, very little private ownership of land, taxes were voluntary, no codification of laws and so on. For a typical state, trade and markets should be developed, state ownership was gradually becoming important, a start towards codification of law could be seen, etc. In a transitional state, trade and markets were of great importance, appointment of functionaries were dominant, private ownership of land was gaining importance and taxation was developing into a well-defined system with a complex apparatus.7 K.V. Ramesh and S.P. Tewari, A Copper-Plate Hoard of the Gupta Period from Bagh, Madhya Pradesh (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1990). Henceforth, this book will be referred to as Bagh CP.8 Bagh CP, Appendix, 60–70.9 D.C. Sircar, ‘Khoh Copper-Plate Inscription of Sarvanatha, Gupta Year 193 (=512AD)’, Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilizations, vol. I (Delhi: V.K. Publishing House, 1993), 390.




of inscriptions and became a common political idiom.10 Padanudhyata is com-monly translated as ‘meditating at the feet of’ but recently Ferrier and Torzsok11 have offered a different explanation for the use of this term. According to them, the correct understanding appears to be ‘favoured by the feet of’ where feet is an honorific, the whole expression meaning ‘favoured by the respected’. Thus, the expression seems to imply that the subordinate ruler derives his authority and power from his overlord, in this case, perhaps the Gupta rulers. With the penetra-tion of Gupta power in the region, emergence of a state structure following the pattern of the Gupta administrative system is noticed. Along with the Guptas, the Vākāṭaka influence could also be discerned in the administrative terminolo-gies of the Valkhā kingdom. As these rulers were of local origin, it is possible to show how the Gupta and Vākāṭaka incursions gave rise to a transformation of the indigenous elites of the region. Since the inscriptions are dated we can locate their contemporary Gupta and Vākāṭaka rulers.

The kingdom, as it appears from its land grants,12 was situated on both sides of the Narmada river, at the southern periphery of the important Gupta strongholds in central India (Airikina, Eran). Eastern Malwa around Eran came under the Gupta rule during the reign of Samudragupta13 (c. 335–375 CE) and continued to be associated with the Gupta realm till the reign of Budhagupta (c. 475–496/500 CE).14 In fact his Eran Stone Pillar inscription of the year 165 or 483/4 CE speaks of the rule of his governor Surasmichandra between the Kālinidī (Yamuna) and Narmada (Kālinidī Narmmadayor = mmadhyam) embracing eastern Malwa. From an inscription inside a cave at Udaygiri in Vidisā,15 we learn that Chandragupta II (c. 375–414 CE) was present in eastern Malwa with an ardent desire to conquer the world (kritsna-prithvī jayārtthena). The Tumain (ancient Tumbavana) inscription of Kumaragupta I, year 116,16 is indicative of Gupta occupation also in the west of

10 Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 126. Ali has given a detailed bibliographical list regarding the dynasties using this kind of terminology; the Valkhā rulers are, however, not mentioned.11 Cedrick Ferrier and Judith Torzsok, ‘Meditating on the King’s Feet? Some Remarks on the Expression Padanudhyata’, Indo-Iranian Journal, 51 (2008): 100–1.12 Bagh CP, 1–70.13 ‘Eran Stone Inscription of Samudragupta’, in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, ed. D.R. Bhandarkar, Vol. III (Revised) (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1981), 220–24.14 ‘Eran Stone Inscription of Budhagupta: The Year 165’, ibid., 339–41. 15 ‘Udaygiri Cave Inscription of Chandragupta II’, ibid., 255–56. Also see Ranabir Chakravarti, Exploring Early India, Up to c. AD 1300 (New Delhi: Macmillan, 2013), 231–40 for a succinct over-view of the growth and spread of the Gupta realm.16 ‘Tumain Inscription of Kumaragupta I: The Year 116’, in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, ed. D.R. Bhandarkar, Vol. III (Revised) (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 198), 276–79. In the story of Bavari from the Sutta Nipata we learn that Bavari, who lived on the banks of the Godavari sent his disciples to the Buddha in Sravasti. Their route has been described as Patitthana of Mulaka (Paithan); then the city of Mahissati (Mahismati); also Ujjeni (Ujjayini) and Gonaddha (Gonardha); Vedisa; Vana-Savhaya (near Tumain); and Savatthi (Sravasti). Thus, Tumain was the part of an important route. See P.N. Bhattacharya, Historical Geography of Madhya Pradesh from Early Records (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977), 258.



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Eran, in the Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh. This entire region came under the occupation of the Guptas perhaps during the reign of Samudragupta and was con-solidated by his successors Chandragupta II and Kumaragupta I till Budhagupta as none of the Gupta rulers are known to have made any conquest in this region. Tumbavana being located on a very important trade route was a coveted region. In fact, the inscription talks of a merchant (sadhu) family. Thus the north of the Valkhā kingdom saw the continuous presence of the Guptas till Budhagupta’s reign around 496 CE.17 However, the last known Valkhā king Nāgabhaṭa was a contemporary of Skandagupta (c. 454–480 CE). To the south of the Valkhā realm lay the northern frontier of the Vākāṭaka kingdom (c. 300 CE–500 CE) embrac-ing the modern regions of central India and the northern Deccan. The Vākāṭakas first established themselves in the Vindhyan region, which included a large part of the Bundelkhand and Bagelkhand tracts. Then they extended southwards towards Deccan. There were parallel collateral branches, one founded by Sarvasena, at Vatsagulma or modern Wasim in Akola district, Maharashtra, the other led by Rudrasena I had its seat of power at Nandivardhana (Nagardhan/Nandardhan near Ramtek or Nandapur in Nagpur district of Maharashtra). Some of the major rivers delineating the landscape of the Vākāṭaka territory include Wardha, Narmada, Tapti, Godavari and their tributaries such as Purna, Dudna and the Wainganga. We have place names in epigraphs, such as, Bennātaṭa and Bennākaṭa, indicating their association with the river Wainganga (Bennā).18 This perhaps influenced the Valkhā realm and thus in their inscriptions we have such expressions as Narmmada-para-kule, Narmmada-dakshina-taṭe, Narmmada- Uttara-taṭe19 in the context of recording the location of the donated land proper-ties. The Narmada valley is not one continuous plain but is broken up into parts, separated by hills. North of the Narmada is the Dhar upland, a hilly and for-ested area. Bagh is located near Dhar. The donated villages perhaps also fall in the region of the Nimar plain that lies on both sides of the Narmada and Nimar upland, which is entirely south of the Narmada.20 The area is rich in mineral deposits. Thus it actually was a buffer zone between the two important monar-chical polities of the fourth and fifth centuries CE India with a strong forest and mineral resource base. Following B. Subbarao21 we can place the Valkhā kingdom in an area of relative isolation which was not environmentally unfavourable and

17 For political history of the Guptas see Ashvini Agrawal, Rise and Fall of the Imperial Guptas (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989).18 K.M. Shrimali, Agrarian Structure in Central India and the Northern Deccan (c.AD300–500) A Study of Vakataka Inscriptions (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1990) 10 and 64. For a history of the Vākāṭakas see Ajay Mitra Shastri, Vakaṭakas: Sources and History. Great Ages of Indian History (New Delhi: Aryan Books International, 1997) and Hans Bakker, ed. The Vakaṭaka Heritage (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2004).19 Bagh CP, Inscription numbers I, III, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVIII, XIX, XXI and Appendix.20 R.L. Singh, India, A Regional Geography (New Delhi: National Geographical Society of India, 1992), 595.21 B. Subbarao, The Personality of India, Pre and Proto-Historic Foundation of India and Pakistan (Baroda: Mahārāja Sayajirao University of Baroda, 1958), 126.




so the area displayed a pattern of survival and progress. Though not located on the main routes of communication, the region could be linked with arterial routes through narrow passageways. Some of the areas of donated villages, both on the north and south of the Narmada had concentration of Chalcolithic sites such as Mahesvar and Navdatoli22 which suggest a strong antecedent of village farming culture. The identifiable donated villages from the charters of the Valkhā kings can be located in the Narmada valley falling within 72°–80° longitude and 20°–24° latitude.23 Apart from Valkhā being the name of the kingdom, we have such terms as Valkhadhishṭhana24 in the grant of Bhulunda, year 50 (369/370 CE), and Valkha Vastavya25 in the grant of Svāmīdāsa, year 63 (382/383 CE). The use of the suffix adhishṭhana implies an administrative centre at Valkhā which therefore may have been the capital of the kingdom of the same name. Valkhadhisṭhana has been identified with present day Balkhar in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh by the editors of the charters. We have the famous archaeological site of Mahesvar26 (west Nimar) near Balkhar. Linkages between the Mahesvar area on the Narmada with regions on the Jamuna river was possible traversing the plateaus and then connecting with river Chambal. The area of the Narmada where Mahesvar lay on the north and Navdatoli on the south was one of the fording points. The emergence of the Valkhā kingdom around Mahesvar on the Narmada may underline the tradi-tional significance of this zone as a major crossing point of the Narmada.27 Being contiguous with the Gupta and the Vākāṭaka kingdoms, it is natural that the local chiefs were influenced by the monarchical political structure. Thus, these new rulers emerged in the history of what may have been a peripheral area of those times. They represented the appearance of local monarchies whose background is uncertain.

Romila Thapar had suggested that in the threshold period things are announced and they take a definite shape in later times.28 This is applicable to the Valkhā state which saw the beginning of land donations in the form of copper-plate charters in western central India which took a definite structure in the later period. Land donations are linked with agrarian expansion. This in turn is crucial to the emer-gence of state society. New areas were brought under the fold of cultivation and this changed the political economy of the region. There are many instances in Indian history where settlements were created after reclamation of forest tracts or marshy lands. It is evident that in case of Valkhā state formation was pos-sible because it had attained the technological level of settled agriculture. But the

22 R.K. Sharma and O.P. Misra, Archaeological Excavations in Central India (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2003), 85.23 Bagh CP, xxiii.24 Bagh CP, ‘Grant of Bhulunda, Year 50, Phalguna’, 6.25 Ibid., ‘Grant of Svāmidāsa, Year 63, Karttika’, 33.26 R.K. Sharma and O.P. Misra, op. cit., 126–28.27 Dilip K. Chakrabarti, The Geographical Orbits of Ancient India (New Delhi: Oxford, 2010), 164.28 Romila Thapar, Early India, From the Origins to AD 1300 (London: Penguin, 2002), 280–325.



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process needs to be studied. Surajit Sinha29 has shown that in a much later period internal development processes in the tribal belt took the form of aspirations to meet the Rajput model with corresponding adaptations. Whether the emergence of the Valkhā kingdom was also a part of the internal development of a pre-state polity with aspirations for monarchical state structure as seen in the neighbouring regions is a question to ponder upon. Thus through a reading of these charters we seek to understand the emergence and growth of the Valkhā state. With donations the donee assumes a significant position and so the nature of patronage of the Valkhā rulers would also be central to our study.

It is evident that this was the initial phase of the land grant charters in India. Therefore, it is natural that the structure of later land grants is not followed here. We know that rather than the early Gupta rulers, it was their contemporary Vākāṭakas and their subordinates who issued land grants. It is important to note that the earliest copper-plate charters written in Prakrit belonged to the Pallava kings of Kānchī and assignable to the middle of the fourth century CE.30 The first charter of Bhulunda was issued in the year 47 of the Gupta era which means c. 367 CE.31 Thus this was perhaps the earliest Sanskrit copper-plate charter issued by a local ruler. However, we do not have a long genealogy of the king, benedictory and imprecatory verses per se, and a record of the king’s prowess and conquest. What we do have is the name of the Brāhmana donee specifying his lineage (gotra) or in some cases the donation is made towards a religious estab-lishment, locational information of the village or land to be granted, prohibition of civil and military officials from entering the grant, and an affirmation that the grant was made as long as the moon, sun and the stars lasted (sasvatam-achandr-arkka-taraka-kalinena), that is, the grant is made in perpetuity. It should be noted that an almost similar expression sasvata-achandr-arkka-taraka-bhojye is found in the Damodarpur copper plate inscription of Kumāragupta I, year 124, that is, 444 CE.32 Incidentally Damodarpur is a village in west Dinajpur district in West Bengal and thus the record belongs to northern Bengal, far removed from the Valkhā area. However, the earliest example of the idea of perpetuity of a donation could be seen in the Nagarjuni Hill cave inscriptions of Dasaratha (c. 220 BCE) where the expression a-chandram-shuliyam (a-chandramah-sauryam)33 is used. Thus, the notion of permanence was always associated with donation whatever might have been the mode of expression.

29 Surajit Sinha, ‘State Formation and Rajput Myth in Tribal Central India’, in The State in India 1000–1700, ed. Hermann Kulke (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), 334.30 D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1996, reprint), 107.31 We prefer to take the charter issued by Bhulunda in the year 47, Pausha as his first issue though in another charter also dated in the year 47, Magha, it is recorded that it was written in the year 38 but was put down on the copper plate in the year 47. We would like to go by the date when the charter was issued on a copper plate.32 D.R. Bhandarkar, CII, vol. III, op. cit., 285.33 Sircar, Select Inscriptions, 77–78.




It is significant to note that in these copper plates we have the term agrahara (agra + ahara), implying that the specific land was donated for the sustenance of the brahmanas, in lieu of the much familiar agrahara used in the later records. Consequently, the term agrahara evolved from agrahara which is unique to these copper plates only. Along with agrahara another term used is brahmadeya. It will be worthwhile to remember that the janapadanivesa section of the Arthasastra refers to the fact that the brahmanas were granted brahmadeya lands to be enjoyed hereditarily and these were exempted from all kinds of danda and kara (brahm- adeyanyadandakaranyabhirupadayakaniprayachchhet).34 Therefore, the expres-sion brahmadeya can be traced back to Arthasastra. Many of the charters mention concurrently Brahmadeya and Agrahara, for example, brahmadeyagrahara35 in a grant of Rudradāsa, year 69, the two terms being clearly differentiated in the later records. This again reinforces the idea that due to the early nature of the state-specific and concrete connotation of each term was not crystallized during the reign of the Valkhā rulers.

It is difficult to agree with the editors about the total absence of boundary markers as the key element suggesting the initial stage of land grants.36 Though we do not have any clear-cut demarcations, as evident in later grants, yet the perception of a fluid line in the form of either the river Narmada or any village or simply referring to the forest region or a forest deity (Vanavasini) as a bound-ary, is found in the charters. This suggests a concept of alienating the granted land from the other through a tangible marker and here the mention in one epi-graph of the term sima along with a marshy or wet land37 (for example, in the grant of Bhulunda, year 57, the expression Ulladana simayam…. saha mandala kachchhena brahmadeya) should also be taken note of. Gradually, in the later records of Rudradāsa in the year 67, we find that some concrete idea of boundary markers were evolving and thus it is stated that a field entrusted with the potter Āryyadāsa is situated in the south-western boundary of Dāsilakapallī. This in real-ity is a pointer to the embryonic character of the state as later examples of land grants with definite boundary markers may be seen as an attempt by the state at gradually organising the donated lands in such a way that there remained no chance for encroachment of any other plot by the donee. As a result, owner-ship or enjoyment of the donated land became more precise and secure and this was ensured by the state. To cite two examples: in about a little more than a 100 years from the grant of Svāmīdāsa, the Gunaighar (in Comilla area of south

34 Radha Govinda Basak (trans.), Kautiliya Arthasastra II, I (Calcutta: General Printers, 1964) (in Bengali), 26. I am thankful to Ranabir Chakravarti for drawing my attention to this early reference of brahmadeya.35 As an example we have the grant of Rudradāsa, year, 69, Asvayuja; Bagh CP, 48.36 Bagh CP, p. xii. The editors write, ‘The total absence of the mention of any boundaries of the gift-lands as also their measurements point to the initial stage of the system of land-grants in the region.’37 The word kachchha denotes any ground bordering on water or watery soil according to Monier-Williams Dictionary. See M. Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit–English Dictionary (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999) (Reprint), 242.



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eastern Bangladesh) grant of Vainyagupta (c. 507 CE) exhibits a serious attempt on the part of the ruler to precisely mention the boundaries of the donated lands.38 More stringent boundaries could be perceived in the records of the Pāla rulers of Kāmarupa (c. end of tenth or early eleventh century CE to twelfth century CE).39 The markers help to somewhat reconstruct the landscape of the rural settlements described in the charters and show how the boundary markers of the area can indicate a wide social cross section of people inhabiting a particular space.40 The total absence of land measurements, of course, points to the initial stage of the system of land grants in the region.

Moreover, unlike the format of the standard charters, no imprecatory verse is present but at the same time the rulers fear some kind of hindrance to the donee and so we have specific injunctions such as na vyahantavyam (grant of Bhulunda, year 59, l. 9) meaning the grant is not to be violated or transgressed,41 na vyasedhya (grant of Bhulunda, year 55, l. 9) implying no hindrance or pro-hibition to be caused to the donee42 and pratishedhashcha na karyah43 (grant of Bhulunda, year 50, l. 7) indicating that nothing should prevent the execution of the grant.44 Thus, these three terms used in three different charters of Bhulunda, are employed in the sense of a caution to any encroachers of the grants. We know that revenue rights were an important right bestowed on the Brāhmana recipients of royal land grants. None of the charters refer to any revenue term except one. The charter of Bhaṭṭāraka records the grant of a plot of land along with paddy fields in the village of Suhasahananaka in Asvassati pathaka to Brāhmana Revati Śarmman of Vatsya gotra along with Udranga (s-odranga), implying that the latter was a source of income. Incidentally this was the first use of this privilege in the land grants of India. There is much debate among scholars regarding the actual meaning of the term. The meaning ranged from the share of produce collected usually for the king, additional tax, tax on permanent tenants, to ground

38 D.C. Sircar, ‘Gunaighar Copper-Plate Inscription of Vainyagupta-Gupta Year 188 (507AD)’, Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilizations, vol. I (Delhi: V.K. Publishing House, 1993) reprint, 340–45. On the importance of boundary markers for understanding rural settlements, see B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Some Aspects of Rural Settlements and Rural Society in Gupta and Post-Gupta Bengal’, in Aspects of Rural Settlements and Rural Society in Early Medieval India (Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, 1990), 18–69. Boundary specifications of Gunaighar record are discussed in the essay.39 The Pālas of Kāmarupa should not be confused with the Pālas of Bengal and Bihar though use of the Pāla name ending is significant. For their inscriptions, see M.M. Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam (Gauhati: Gauhati University Publications, 1978).40 Suchandra Ghosh, ‘Understanding Boundary Representations in the Copper-Plate Charters of Early Kāmarupa’, Indian Historical Review 41, no. 2 (2014), 207–22.41 M. Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit English Dictionary (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999) (Reprint), 1039.42 Ibid., 1039.43 Ibid., 671.44 Bagh CP, 29, 20, 5.




rent and so on.45 In a recent study on Udranga46 it has been observed that grant of land together with Udranga was mostly confined to western India and Deccan. Reference to Udranga is not known in the inscriptions of Orissa and Assam. We have the mention of Udranga in a few grants from Bengal where it was used in the sense of a tax and a type of land.47 Normally in the later grants Udranga is always associated with another revenue term Uparikara which has been explained as additional taxes, minor taxes or tax paid by the temporary tenants.48 In a grant of Subandhu49 (c. 487 CE) from Bagh, Udranga is mentioned along with Uparikara. The absence of any mention of common tax names could be understood from the point of view that the rulers did not feel the necessity of separately men-tioning the normal taxes. Taxation had not developed into a well-defined system with a complex apparatus to ensure its regular flow. It was only in the case of introduction of an unknown tax that the necessity to record the name was felt.

We know that the royal order regarding the grant of a village or plot/plots of land was not always issued by the king himself, but was often conveyed through an intermediary often called dutaka (literally messenger, but here executor) who was generally a high officer, sometimes even a prince.50 In the case of these char-ters the presence of a dutaka is not very regular. Moreover, what is noteworthy is that in the early charters, the dutakas, wherever they were present, were officially either an arakshika (a police officer or the chief of the king’s bodyguards) or a pratihara (officer in charge of the defence of the palace or the city gates). Only in one grant of Nāgabhaṭa of the year 134 do we find a bhandagarika (officer in charge of the treasury or royal store house) as an executor (dutaka). What is significant is that the dutakas of the early copper plate charters were all secu-rity personnel and thereby the king’s trustworthies. Moreover their names are indicative of their autochthonous origin. So we have persons with names such as Gomika, Haṭaka, Addyakarnna, Varaha, etc., as dutakas. From the time of Mahārāja Rudradāsa51 (year 68, that is, 388 CE) there were other persons who acted as dutakas but they did not have any precise official designation. They had the honorific Bhaṭṭi added to their name, which became Sanskritized. Consequently, we now have as dutakas Bhaṭṭi Isvaradatta, Bhaṭṭi Rudradasa or simply Jayanatha. The addition of the title of respect Bhaṭṭi may suggest that brahmanas were given the post of dutaka. The irregular mention of dutaka suggests a kind of fluid administrative setup where the presence of an executor

45 D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphical Glossary (Varanasi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1965), 349.46 Sayantani Pal and Subir Sarkar, ‘Udranga in Early Medieval Inscriptions of India vis-à-vis Bengal’. Paper presented at the Conference on Bengal Art. Ranchi, Unpublished paper, 2014.47 This was suggested by Pal and Sarkar in their unpublished paper entitled ‘Udranga in Early Medieval Inscriptions of India vis-à-vis Bengal’. See R.C. Majumdar, ‘Midnapore Plates of Sasanka, Year 19’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Letters, 11 (1945), 7–8.48 D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphical Glossary, 352.49 V.V. Mirashi, ‘Bagh Cave Plate of Subandhu’, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. Vol. IV, Part I (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1955), 19–21. 50 D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphical Glossary, 143.51 Bagh CP, 42.



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with respect to grant of lands/villages was not an essential requisite. Interestingly, the first plate of Bhulunda records the execution of the deed in the presence of five artisans (pañcha karukam cha samukham).52 Pañcha karukam could mean five groups of artisans, namely, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, brassmiths, carpenters and stone masons.53 It is said that the artisans were the descendants of the five sons of Visvakarma. The question that naturally comes to our mind is why was it important to mention the artisans as witnesses? Were the artisans an important social group whose witness merited record in an official document? Was it some-thing like pañchakula?54 That artisans were important in this region is evident. We have an entire village in the name of the lohakaras, that is, iron mongers and the lohakarapalli is referred to as a purva-bhujyamanaka, that is, the land was formerly under the enjoyment of Lohakarapallika in a grant of Svāmīdāsa, year 65 (384/85 CE).55 But after this instance, none of the records mention groups of artisans. Did the pañcha karu as an important socioeconomic group lose its rel-evance so as to merit complete silence in the later records? We have no answer.

The use of the expression bhujyamanaka (being enjoyed) is significant. In this grant of Mahārāja Svāmīdāsa one plot of land which was under the enjoy-ment of Lohakārapallikā was transferred to an individual brahmana called Matujja. We have such earlier cases also where Mahārāja Bhulunda, (year 54, c. 373/374 CE) granted villages which had been earlier brought under the enjoy-ment (purva-bhujyamanaka) of a donee, in this case god Bappa Pisāchadeva and then re-granted to the same deity with an exalted status of devagrahara. The term bhujyamanaka is not ubiquitous in the charters of early India and perhaps the ear-liest reference to this term has been found in the copper plates issued by Mahārāja Bhulunda. However, it needs to be mentioned here that the Yavatmal plates of the Vākāṭaka ruler Pravarasena II (year 26) renews an earlier grant of land which was already being enjoyed (purvva-bhujyamanika bhumih).56 The use of the term bhujyamanaka could also be seen much later in the second half of the seventh century CE in the Ashrafpur copper plate grants of Devakhadga belonging to the Khadga dynasty of south-eastern Bengal.57 Thus, it appears that ownership of the land was retained by the king and the right of enjoyment was transferred from one donee to the other.58 This also signifies different kinds of land relations.

52 Ibid., 2.53 Sircar, Indian Epigraphical Glossary, 230.54 Ibid., 230.55 Bagh CP, 37.56 K.M. Shrimali, Agrarian Structure in Central India and the Northern Deccan (c. AD 300–500) A Study of Vakaṭaka Inscriptions (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1990), 10, 64.57 G.M. Laskar, ‘Ashrafpur Copper-Plate Grants of Devakhadga’, Memoirs of The Asiatic Society of Bengal 1, no. 6 (1906): 85–91.58 This has been recently discussed by Ryosuke Furui in the context of Ashrafpur plates. Ryosuke Furui, ‘Agrarian Expansion and Local Power Relation in Seventh and Eighth Century East Bengal: A Study on Copper Plate Inscriptions’, in Urbanity and Economy: Pre-Modern Dynamics in Eastern India, ed. Ratnabali Chatterjee (Kolkata: Setu Prakashani, 2014), 101.




Though in a nascent stage, the mention of various territorial divisions in the charters is quite remarkable. Consequently, we have rashṭra, bhukti, pathaka, avasa. Again for villages we have such name endings as padraka, gartta, anaka, vaṭaka, pallika and so on.59 Importantly, except for gartta all the name endings for villages are common to the Vākāṭaka records suggesting influence from the Vākāṭaka territory. Gartta (lowland), however, is representative of local flavour. The suffixes denoting rural settlements are more or less synonymous suggest-ing small village settlements. Though Palli is ordinarily taken to be a ‘tribal’60 village, it was not invariably such a settlement, as B.D. Chattopadhyaya argues.61 It could also mean a hamlet in the context of a peasant village. In the case of these charters, two references to Pallikā and one to Palli have been found but it is not possible to identify them either as a peasant village or a settlement of tribal people only on the basis of their names such as Palāsapalli, Lohakārapallikā and Dagdhapallikā. Lohakārapallikā was definitely a settlement of ironsmiths and as mentioned earlier, they were also in possession of land. With the penetration of the agrahara system of land donation resulting in settled agricultural practices, palli/pallikas would eventually be transformed into peasant villages or adminis-trative units. In one case Dasilakapalli is mentioned as a rashṭraka (Bhulunda, year 47) in one inscription and pathaka (Rudradāsa, year 67) in another, both being territorial units without any properly identified hierarchy. The fluidity of usage of administrative or land vocabulary from the Guptas and Vākāṭakas comes through when we come across such divisions which contain both the village name ending and the administrative name such as Udumbaragarttapathaka or two divi-sions together such as Navarashṭrakapathaka. So, it was possible to use any of the terms for denoting a territorial unit. This is a definite marker of early state where administrative divisions are not yet well-defined. Though other divisions are known, the editors feel that avasa/vasa occur for the first time as a territo-rial name suffix in our charters.62 The village names are quite interesting with pronounced references to flora, bird names and therefore are instructive of the environment of the granted land bearing a strong indigenous element. As examples

59 Bagh CP, xix, xx, xxi. The editors have given a list of territorial divisions and villages recorded in the charters.60 The term ‘tribal’ is not a happy expression and Shireen Ratnagar in an essay entitled ‘Who Are the Tribals?’ has given a very clear definition of a ‘tribe’. According to her ‘a tribe is not just a group of people that shares a common culture, a name, an ethnic identity and a language/dialect: more important, its members believe they are one people because they trace their origins to a common ancestor—tribal societies by and large have not developed economic systems that require writing. They have no formally constituted institutions of governance or administration. Following her defini-tion it is difficult to designate Valkhā kingdom as essentially tribal as its first ruler Bhulunda, though with a non-Sanskritic name, was quite adept in administrative usage and Brahmanical rituals. For the sake of convenience we shall use the term tribal to differentiate between people and places with Sanskritic and non-Sanskritic names. See Shireen Ratnagar, ‘Who Are the Tribals?’, One India One People, November (2000), 6–7.61 B.D. Chattopadhyaya, Aspects of Rural Settlements and Rural Society in Early Medieval India (Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, 1990), 2–3.62 Ibid., xxi.



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we have Salmalipadraka, Palasapalli, Kharjurika, Nimbapadraka, Pippalojjhara, Arjunapanktika, etc., related to flora and Kokilavasaka and Kukkutananka based on bird names. As a conjectural piece of evidence it may be suggested that there was some physical basis to these names and the landscape of these villages was dominated by the flora that their names indicate. Thus, Salmalipadraka at one point of time must have been strewn with silk cotton trees which were also economically viable. The landscape of the kingdom as understood from a study of these charters could have boasted of woods.

A look at the nature of donation by these rulers indicates that during the reign of Bhulunda, the first ruler, most of the grants known as devagrahara were donated for the services of the gods and goddesses, that is, temple rituals.63 That the temples were already active is clear from the fact that the charters speak of persons related to temple as deva-karmantika (a temple officer), deva-paricharaka (commonly servant of the temple, perhaps personnel who look after the temple), deva-prasadaka (perhaps meaning one who sustains himself through the favour of the god, in other words an official in the temple), deva-karmina (an officer in charge of the affairs of the temple or a temple priest) and devakiya-karshaka (cultivators associated with temple lands). These are of special significance in the context of the role of religious establishments in undertaking agricultural produc-tion.64 The mention of these officials/personnel related to temples with varying designations perhaps indicates the beginning of a temple organization in the region. The purpose of these grants was always the performance of Bali, Charu and Satra rites and providing perfume, incense and garlands (gandha-dhupa-malyopayogadishu) to these temples. A reading of the inscriptions would show that during the reign of Mahārāja Bhulunda (c. 367CE–c. 379 CE) three temples refer to Nārāyana, four to the autochthonous deity Bappa Pisāchadeva, two temples to mother goddesses (Bhagavatinam) also called mahamatrinam in the same plate (Great mothers) (Bhulunda, year 50) and one to God Mahasenadeva. Regarding these gods and goddesses a few points could be noticed. Mahārāja Bhulunda refers to himself as the devotee of Narayana and he also installed the temple of Narayanadeva at Valkhā adhishthana, that is, the capital city. Consequently, his personal association with Narayana is established. It is noteworthy that in the first inscription of Bhulunda dated Gupta year 47 (CE 366–67) and even in the others a long account of Vishnu and his incarnations are given.65 According to Michael Willis this explains the relationship of subordinate kings to the Vaishnava cult of the Gupta court.66 With respect to the mother goddesses we find that in the first instance he established ‘Great Mothers’ at a place called Navataṭaka. Accord- ing to B.D. Chattopadhyaya the prefix Maha’ indirectly refers to the exalted

63 Bagh CP, Inscriptions numbering I–XV deal with donation to temples for temple rituals.64 K.M. Shrimali, ‘Some Aspects of Land Relations in Central India (c. AD 350 to c. AD 450)’, in Historical Diversities, Society, Politics & Culture (Essays for Professor V.N. Datta), ed. K.L. Tuteja and Sunita Pathania (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), 25–34.65 Bagh CP, ‘Grant of Bhulunda, Year 47, Pausha’, 1.66 Michael Willis, The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual, Temples and the Establishment of Gods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 94.




status of the goddesses which justifies their receiving royal patronage.67 Perhaps Chattopadhyaya is justified as another grant given to the devakula68 (temple) of mother goddesses, established by Pasupatacharyya Bhagavat Lokodadhi and not the Maharaja himself, so the prefix ‘Maha’ is missing. In the case of Lord Mahasenadeva (Svami) also, the term used is asmabhih pratishṭhapitaka, that is, in this case also the temple is established by the Maharaja. That the ‘new raja’ was not associated with the indigenous deity Bappa Pisachadeva is evident from the fact that three of the grants (years 51, 54 and 57) to this deity were given by Bhulunda, only at the request of Bhojika Bhaṭṭa Bandhula who established the temple of Pisachadeva at the capital city of Valkhā. At the request of Bhojika Bhaṭṭa Bandhula, they were given the status of devagrahara,69 which implied many facilities, and the elevation of a local deity to the status of other deities of the brahmanical pantheon with the usual rites and rituals. This may seem to be what Chattopadhyaya calls the ‘brahmanical mode of appropriation’.70 Moreover, the establishment of a temple by a lady is also rare. Pisacha relates to an evil spirit. Perhaps by worshipping the lord of Pisachas, here Bappa perhaps meant father or lord, that is, Valkhā was being protected from the malevolent eye. Patronage legitimised power and helped the emergence of a stratum of ruling elites, more importantly in this case a woman. Another grant of Maharaja Bhulunda, year 59, donated at the request of one Innapāda also talks about the installation of Bappa Pisachadeva not in Valkhā but in a vishaya called Narmmadapara- para (Narmmadaparapara-vishaye iha-aiva pratishthapitaka-svami-Bappa Pisachadeva). We have no idea where this vishaya could be located but the inter-esting fact is that the vishaya is named after the river Narmada. What is worth noting is that an erstwhile brahmadeya-kshetra of the village Garjanānaka, was granted to the god.

It is significant to note that the choice of the other deities such as Matrika and Kartikeya was perhaps not random but thoughtfully selected. A later grant of the Chālukyas, the Amudalapadu plates of Vikramaditya I, dated around 660 CE shows that these gods had some specific roles within the royal cult, variously

67 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Reappearance’ of the Goddess or the Brahmanical Mode of Appropriation: Some Early Epigraphic Evidence Bearing on Goddess Cults’, Studying Early India (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003), 176–77.68 Devakulas are generally taken to be temples quite distinct from the Kushāna period Devakula at Mat near Mathura which was a dynastic shrine meant for worshipping the deities whom the Kushāna kings venerated and was also a temple of the kings themselves. The Māṭ shrine near Mathura was excavated in 1911–12 by Rai Bahadur Pandit Radha Krishna. It is called a devakula according to an inscription of the year 28 of the time of Huvishka. See Sten Konow, ‘Maṭhura Brāhmī Inscription of the year 28’, Epigraphia Indica, XXI, 60–66. Gerard Fussman, ‘The Māṭ devakula: A New Approach to its Understanding’, in Maṭhura, the Cultural Heritage, ed. Doris Meth Srinivasan (New Delhi: Manohar, 1989), 198.69 It is important to note that in the grant dated year 54, month of Vaisakha, the two villages which were granted the enjoyment (purvva-bhujyamanakam) of Bappa Pisachadeva were now getting them as devagraharas.70 B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Reappearance’ of the Goddess or the Brahmanical Mode of Appropriation (Delhi: Studying Early India, Permanent Black, 2003), 182–83.



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augmenting the favour, prosperity and power of the royal family. The record begins with an account of how the founders of the Chālukya dynasty increased in favour through the grace of the Sapta Matrika (seven mothers), obtained pros-perity through the protection of Karttikeya, and overpowered enemies by the very sight of the Varaha emblem that the Chālukyas acquired by the grace of Narayana.71

(saptamatribhirbhivarddhitanam karttikeyaparirakshanapraptakalyanaparamparanam bhagavatnarayanaprasadasamasadita varahalanchhanekshankshanavasikritasesham- ahibhritam).

Holding centre stage was Narayana, the god by whose grace the kings enjoyed power. For example Mahārāja Bhulunda, too, as his first record reads, was the dasa of Narayana, his Svami. Another significant aspect of these grants to tem-ples demands our attention. In most of the cases the Pasupatas are said to be attached to these temples. We know that the Pasupatas were a Śaivite sect. But here they are present in the context of the temple of Narayana, as well as Bappa Pisachadeva. Pasupata was one of the earliest Saiva sects prevalent in India and its popularity in western India is well known.72 Their presence here implies that sectarian differences did not surface in these areas during the fourth century CE and hence they are present in a Vaishnava context. The centrality of Lord Nārāyana in the kingdom of Mahārāja Bhulunda, is thus beyond question. Though it was just the beginning of cult formation in the region yet it seems that Nārāyana surpassed the local god Bappa Pisāchadeva because of the ruler’s association with him. The king as the patron was instrumental in giving centrality to the cult of Nārāyana and not otherwise. Unlike in Orissa the dominant autochthonous deity was not the tutelary deity of the Valkhā kingdom.73

The installation of these images/temples required regular services, which in turn demanded resources which came from grants of villages and lands. In all the cases we have a combination of bali, charu and satra, which was a part of the pañchamahayajña, and offerings of sandal paste, incense, flowers and garlands which formed a part of the ritual of worship. It is difficult to understand its impli-cation in a temple setting. The puja and the yajña were entwined with the services required for deities in the form of temple servants (devakarmins) and members of other sects. It has recently been shown by Willis that when these three are mentioned in a puja context, they are not simply parts of the pañchamahayajña. According to him bali, charu and satra ‘were a discrete and well ordered triad,

71 Shrinivas V. Padigar, ed. ‘Amudalapadu Plates of Vikramaditya I’, Inscriptions of the Calukyas of Badami (Bangalore: ICHR, Southern Regional Centre, 2010), 67–68. Also see Willis, op. cit., 95.72 Jash Pranabananda, History of Saivism (Calcutta: Roy and Chaudhuri, 1974), 44.73 Hermann Kulke, ‘Royal Temple Policy and the Structure of Medieval Hindu Kingdoms’, in Kings and Cults, State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia (Delhi: Manohar, 1993), 6. Kulke has shown that in the case of Orissa, the Hinduized chiefs or Hindu Rajas accepted the dominant autochthonous deities of their territories as family and tutelary deities of their princi- palities as they were highly dependent on the support and loyalty of the tribes.




quite separate from other types of offerings. Priests have carefully and deliber-ately moved sacrifices from the domestic environment to the temple and attracted funding to support these rites in a new location.’74 Satra activities took place at the temple, they were understood to be part of the pujā of the deity and that the charitable provision involved clothing as well as food. It is true that epigraphic evidence shows that in the beginning this concept was associated with Narayana. Thus, from c. 367 CE to c. 379 CE temples in the Valkhā kingdom received considerable patronage.75 One must remember that this was the beginning of temple-building activity in north India.

Now let us turn our attention to copper-plate charters of other rulers. What is surprising is that from about the time of the next ruler Svāmidāsa whose earliest grant dates to c. 383 CE till the time of Nāgabhaṭa (c. 454 CE) none of the charters donate land to any temple. Did the temples lose relevance to the succeeding rulers? Perhaps not, as the beneficiaries of the grants are all brahmanas and among the brahmanas a large chunk were probably priests. They were surely offering pujā to the deities. But here the kings chose the brahmanas as they could realize that giving grants to a temple meant the prosperity of the institution of temple whereas giving grants to individual or groups of brahmanas meant elevation of an individual or a group from a simple purohita to a land holder in some cases to a landed group. Consequently, there is a prominent visibility of the brahmanas in the form of land grants. Brahmana donees were introduced to the village popu-lation through these grants. This was done as the ‘new political elites’ needed legitimation and this benefited the brahmanas. Kulke has shown that regional kingdoms systematically settled Brāhmanas near the political centres of the kingdom towards the end of the first millennium CE and these brahmanas acted as ideological and administrative specialists.76 This process began in the Valkhā kingdom in the middle of the first millennium CE when brahmanas were entrusted with the task of a dutaka. The rural landscape underwent changes. Brahmanas emerged as the dominant caste group in the brahmadeya villages. Plots of lands which were originally entrusted to non-brahmanas, such as, potters, merchants or belonging to a village of the iron mongers (lohakarapalli), were given to the brahmanas. Thus, we have evidence of individual ownership of land by occu-pational groups other than the brahmanas. From the charters it is not possible to discern whether these people were in possession of land before the rise of the Valkhā state but it could be categorically said that in about fifth or early sixth cen-turies CE, increasing evidence of individual ownership from other areas could be inferred from the copper plates in the form of boundaries of a given piece of land. A classic case could be the Gunaighar (near Comilla in Bangladesh) copper plates of Vainyagupta issued in the Gupta year 188 (507 CE) where we have reference

74 Willis, The Formation of Temple Ritual in the Gupta Period: Puja and Panchamahayajna, 76.75 See Appendix, Table A1 for the donations of Mahārāja Bhulunda.76 Hermann Kulke, 11–12.



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to a large number of privately owned plots.77 However, gifts of villages to the brahmanas led to a significant proliferation of brahmanical settlements. That new settlements were coming up is evident from the names of places as navataṭaka and navarashṭraka. Moreover there was a migration of brahmanas too. Though in these charters we have no reference to large-scale migration from other places but we have numerous references to a group called Aryya Chaturvaidyapadas, that is, proficient in four Vedas, who resided at Valkhā and were given villages on both sides of the Narmada. This group of brahmanas became wealthy and with the possession of so many villages turned into landed elite. To make use of their newly found wealth, they must have moved to new locations. In another instance it is said that a group of brahmanas which was already a part of another agrahara was now given the habitation site of a village as per brahmadeya norms. So they moved from their original habitation to this one. As the group of brahmanas was large, the establishment of the habitation site implied the termination of cultivation from large tracts of land. The expression used is krishṭavasannaka- grama-dhana and this is the meaning given to the term by the editors.78 If it was indeed so, then it is rather surprising that cultivable lands were converted to sites for habitation at a landscape that did not boast of a fertile topography. Consequently, here is a case where even at the cost of losing agrarian resources the rulers felt the desperate need of establishing a brahmanical settlement. K.M. Shrimali,79 however, has given an alternative reading to the term. According to him ‘it would perhaps be more appropriate to read the concerned term as avasana rather than avasannaka, which would mean a dwelling or living on the boundar-ies of a village’. The problem however is that a close look at the inscription itself would show that the term is avasannaka and not avasana.80

We might divide the plates into two phases; a single king Bhulunda domi-nates the first phase where the religious context of the charters becomes important. We notice a symbiotic relation between the different sects of Puranic

77 In the Gunaighar copper plates we find that the first plot consisting of seven paṭakas and nine dronavapas lay between the limits of gunakagrahara and the kshetra (cultivated plot) of the varddhaki (carpenter) Vishnu in the east, fields belonging to the royal monastery and to Miduvilala (mechanic), fields belonging to three persons in the west (their professions not mentioned) and fields belonging to several individuals and a tank belonging to a person of the Dosi community to its north. The second portion measured 28 dronavapas of land and thus was a much smaller unit. Its four boundary markers were the village of Gunikagrahara to the east, plot belonging to Pakka vilāla in the west, to the south plot belonging to the raja vihara and, to the north, a plot belonging to a person perhaps of a vaidya caste. In the third segment which measured twenty-three dronavapas, all bordering plots belonged to individuals. Names such as Jalari or Nagi-Joudaka could be read. The fourth segment also refers to individual land holders and it measured thirty dronavapas. The plot of Buddhaka was in the east, that of Kalaka in the south, Surya in the west and Mahipāla in the north. The fifth plot which measured a couple of paṭakas less than a quarter had the following boundaries, to the east, the khandaviduggurika kshetra to the south, the field of Manibhadra to the west the field of Yajnarāta and to the north the village of Nada-udaka.78 Bagh CP, xviii.79 Shrimali, op. cit., 26.80 See Appendix, Table A2 for donation to brahmanas.




brahmanism. Thus, the Pasupatas, Pasupatacharyas, Bhagavachchhishṭas, Mantraganacharyas figure together in the charters.81 Perhaps the new political elite were trying to grapple with a contemporary situation where transformation from Vedic brahmanism to the sectarian pluralism of the period was in the making. We have seen that recording donations on a copper plate was at an experimental stage. In the second phase we have a set of four rulers who were aware of the virtues of Bhumi dana, especially to brahmanas. There was perhaps a change in the belief system, where temple donation was relegated to the background and dona-tion to brahmanas became primarily important. The term belief is not taken here in the sense of religion or faith but it means the belief in the method of procuring political supremacy. In the case of Bhulunda, temple donation meant a place in the brahmanical monarchical system following his overlord the paramabhaṭṭaraka, identified with the Gupta monarch where similarity in religious ideology with the lord would give him a firm footing in his newly acquired territory. On the other hand, for Bhulunda successors, the Valkhā kingdom was already created and the need of the hour was to make the brāhmanas, the highest social group as well as increase the resource base through agrarian expansion.

Though nearby, Bagh as a Buddhist site looms large from about the middle of the fifth century CE; however, in the inscriptions, we have no indication of any kind of presence or patronage to any Buddhist establishment. Along with the Brahmanical gods and goddesses, worship of dominant autochthonous deity in the form of Bappa Pisachadeva could be seen. The sectarian elements were not predominant and there was no incompatibility between local cult and brahmanical sacred centres. The shift in patronage from temples to brahmanas exhibits early forms of political–social transformation. The actual administrative structures inevitably contained the carry-overs of the Gupta and Vākāṭaka administrative systems. An attempt to introduce terminologies related to administration of land used by the two dynasties could be seen. In fact several administrative terms have a distinct connection with the terminologies found in the Vākāṭaka records, this again speaks of patronage to brahmanas. In the choice of language for the grants they followed the Gupta tradition, thereby indicating a north Indian orientation. The use of the Gupta era speaks of the possible penetration of the Gupta power and cultural matrix in this area, without however leading to a direct incorporation of this area in the Gupta realm.

It appears from a reading of all the charters that this newly emerged local polity did not seek validation through linkage with a respectable ancestry though it was in a state society stage. This is exceptional as various studies on political processes have shown that the creation of genealogies or establishing linkages

81 Suchandra Ghosh, ‘The Valkhā Kingdom: A Religio-economic Study (4th–5th Centuries C.E.)’, in Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the ‘European Association for South Asian Archaeology and Art’, Vol. 2: Contextualizing Material Culture in South and Central Asia in Pre-Modern Times, ed. Verena Widorn and Ute Franke (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).



Ghosh 19

with mythical rulers was the common trend of new political powers.82 The Valkhā state was evolving and we have gradual visibility of the brahmanical norms. The evolving character of the state is also evident from the gradually discernible presence of state officials in the charters. Strengthening central power and increas-ing the number of appointed functionaries, which means a gradual process of bureaucratization, is characteristic of all early states. Agrahāra as an institution became an agency of the ruler which could be used for legitimacy. The study of the charters suggest that it is not possible to posit the Valkhā state in any one of the much accepted three types of the early state as suggested by Claessen and Skalnik. The Valkhā state was truly a combination of a typical early state and an early state judged to be transitional. While we have little mention of trade and markets, state ownership of lands was gaining ground. Therefore, we have the enjoyer of lands who could be easily displaced from his possession with his right of enjoy-ment transferred. Though specific punishment is not mentioned yet caution is pronounced regarding any kind of hindrance to the donee or in the execution of the grant. The most ubiquitous feature of the early state is the emergence of a two-class system of the ruler and the ruled. Here, through the prism of copper-plate charters, we perceive a three-tier system, where the king is the apex political authority, then we have a set of people who are known as bhujyamanaka (enjoyer of the land), usually brahmanas and then the peasants and other social groups. A new set of temple officials were created whose designations are instructive of two functions—service and favour. Thus, we have persons working in and for the temple who are known as deva karmin, deva paricharaka, deva prasadaka and so on. The Valkhā state was in the process of articulation of the modes and norms for granting lands. So, the grants are stated to have been made as per the krama (custom, rule sanctioned by tradition) or nyaya (a general or universal model) evolved for the purpose and the stipulations are of an appropriate nature (uchitaya). This demonstrates that there were customs and usages which derived their validity as much from the recognition accorded by the existing political author-ity as from the force of practice coming from the past. The early state of Valkhā grew out of its own internal dynamics and aspirations for monarchical political structure acted as an added incentive for the rise of the early state of Valkhā.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer of this article for the insightful comments that have served to improve vastly the quality of the manu-script. I am grateful to the Fondation Sciences de l’Homme, Paris for providing me with a short visiting fellowship in July, 2014 to work in their library. My thanks go to my student Devkumar Jhanjh for carefully putting in the diacritical marks in the two charts accompanying the article.

82 Kulke, Royal Temple Policy and the Structure of Medieval Hindu Kingdoms, 1–16.



Ap

pen

dix

Tab

le A

1. D

onat

ions

of M

ahar

aja

Bhul

un.d .

a

No.

Nam

e of

Insc

ript

ions

Don

orPl

ace

of

Issu

eD

onee

Loca

tion

Oth

er In

form

atio

n

1.G

rant

of B

hulu

n .d.a

, ye

ar 4

7, m

onth

of

Paus

ha, e

ight

h da

y

of d

ark

fort

nigh

t(3

20+

47=

367

GE)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Lord

Nar

ayan

.aFi

ve v

illag

es o

n th

e so

uthe

rn b

ank

of t

he r

iver

N

arm

mad

a, U

kkar

ıpad

raka

, D

ubho

dika

, Bhe

t .-

unka

lika,

saj

jarh

rada

ka a

long

w

ith t

he w

ater

res

ervo

ir

calle

d V

ibhı

taka

pan

ıyak

a

and

Kar

mm

anta

For

the

perf

orm

ance

of

bali,

cha

ru a

nd s

atra

.T

he d

eed

was

exe

cute

d in

th

e pr

esen

ce o

f fiv

e ar

tisan

s (p

anch

a-ka

ruka

)

2.G

rant

of B

hulu

n .d.a

, ye

ar 5

0, m

onth

of

Cha

itra,

ele

vent

h da

y of

dar

k fo

rtni

ght

(320

+50

= 3

70G

E)

Bhul

un.d .

aV

alkh

aM

ulas

arm

ma

and

Bh

uta-

bhoj

aka

who

w

ere

actu

ally

dep

ende

nt

of t

he t

empl

e

Vill

age

Dub

hodi

ka w

ith

Mul

asar

mm

a an

d vi

llage

D

harm

man .

aka

and

a pl

ot o

f la

nd in

the

Arj

unap

ankt

ika

with

Bhu

ta-b

hoja

ka

For

the

perf

orm

ance

of

bali,

cha

ru a

nd s

atra

and

in

prov

idin

g fo

r sa

ndal

pas

te,

ince

nse

and

garl

ands

for

the

mot

her

godd

esse

s (B

haga

vatı

, mat

r .ina

m)

inst

alle

d at

nav

atat .

aka

Tho

ugh

ther

e is

no

impr

ecat

ory

vers

e bu

t it

is m

entio

ned

that

no

hind

ranc

e sh

ould

be

caus

ed



(Tab

le A

1 co

ntin

ued)

3.G

rant

of B

hulu

n .d.a

, ye

ar 5

0, m

onth

of

phal

guna

, in

the

fifth

da

y of

the

bri

ght

fort

nigh

t(3

20+

50=

370

GE)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edid

ates

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Lord

Nar

ayan

.a d

eva

ie.

The

tem

ple

of N

aray

an.-

ad

eva,

inst

alle

d at

Val

kha

adhi

s .t .ha

na (

capi

tal)

Vill

age

of P

ippa

lojjh

ara

on

the

fart

her

bank

of

the

Nar

mm

ada

Obj

ect

of t

he g

rant

was

th

e pe

rfor

man

ce o

f bal

i, ch

aru

and

satr

a ri

tes.

It

was

furt

her

stat

ed t

hat

the

tem

ple

culti

vato

rs,

the

Pasu

pata

s, t

he A

ryya

-C

hoks

has

and

the

tem

ple

serv

ants

sho

uld

be

perm

itted

tod

o of

bal

i, ch

aru

and

satr

a an

d pr

ovid

e sa

ndal

pas

te, i

ncen

se a

nd

garl

ands

. The

tem

ple

is

of N

aray

an.a

but

we

have

re

fere

nce

to S

aiva

sec

t.

4.G

rant

of B

hulu

n .d.a

, ye

ar 5

1, m

onth

of

Ash

a d .ha

in t

he

seco

nd d

ay o

f the

da

rk fo

rtni

ght

(320

+51

= 3

71G

E)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Lord

Nar

ayan

.aT

hree

plo

ts o

f lan

d en

trus

ted

with

/enj

oyed

by

Mah

esva

ra, N

anda

pala

an

d N

andi

. Plo

ts w

ere

in

the

villa

ge o

f Am

bilik

apad

ra

(a v

illag

e) a

nd a

lso

a pl

ot

of w

aste

land

(kh

ila)

to

the

wes

t as

per

the

rul

es

gove

rnin

g de

vagr

ahar

a gr

ants

.

For

the

perf

orm

ance

of

bali,

cha

ru a

nd s

atra

and

in

prov

idin

g fo

r sa

ndal

pas

te,

ince

nse,

flow

ers

an

d ga

rlan

ds.

Tem

ple

serv

ants

incl

ude

culti

vato

rs w

ho c

ultiv

ate

an

d so

w s

eeds

.



5.G

rant

of B

hulu

n .d.a

, ye

ar 5

4, m

onth

of

vais

akha

in t

he t

hird

da

y of

the

bri

ght

fort

nigh

t(3

20+

54=

374

GE)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edid

ates

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

a rak

a

Val

kha

Bapp

a-pi

sach

adev

a

inst

alle

d at

Val

kha

by

Bho

jika

Hal

f of t

he v

illag

e of

V

ibhı

taka

gart

ta w

hich

w

as e

arlie

r en

joye

d

by t

he s

ame

deity

The

vill

ages

wer

e al

read

y in

the

pos

sess

ion

of t

he

sam

e go

d bu

t no

w t

hese

ha

ve b

een

give

n th

e st

atus

of a

dev

agra

hara

fo

r th

e pe

rfor

man

ce o

f ba

li, c

haru

and

sat

ra a

nd

in p

rovi

ding

for

sand

al

past

e, in

cens

e, fl

ower

s an

d ga

rlan

ds e

xecu

tor

was

the

Gom

ika,

Tem

ple

serv

ants

and

Pas

upat

as

wer

e al

low

ed t

o cu

ltiva

te.

To

be a

dmin

iste

red

by t

he

devo

tees

of B

haga

vat

6.G

rant

of B

hulu

n .d.a

, ye

ar 5

4, m

onth

of

vais

akha

in t

he fo

urth

da

y of

the

bri

ght

fort

nigh

t(3

20+

54=

374

GE)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edid

ates

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Bapp

a-pi

sach

a de

va

inst

alle

d at

V

alkh

a by

Bh

ojik

a

Val

kha

Dev

agra

hara

and

G

avay

apan

ıyak

a si

tuat

ed

in U– ri

ka-r

asht

.ra

give

n

at t

he r

eque

st o

f Bh

ojik

a-bh

at .t .a

Ba

ndhu

la

The

vill

ages

wer

e al

read

y in

the

pos

sess

ion

of t

he

sam

e go

d bu

t no

w t

hese

ha

ve b

een

give

n th

e st

atus

of a

dev

agra

hara

fo

r th

e pe

rfor

man

ce o

f ba

li, c

haru

and

sat

ra a

nd

in p

rovi

ding

for

sand

al

past

e, in

cens

e, fl

ower

s an

d ga

rlan

ds e

xecu

tor

was

the

Gom

ika,

Tem

ple

serv

ants

and

Pas

upat

as

wer

e al

low

ed t

o cu

ltiva

te.

New

add

ition

- T

his

gran

t is

to

be

adm

inis

tere

d by

the

go

od d

evot

ees

of B

haga

vat

(Nar

ayan

.a)

(Tab

le A

1 co

ntin

ued)

No.

Nam

e of

Insc

ript

ions

Don

orPl

ace

of

Issu

eD

onee

Loca

tion

Oth

er In

form

atio

n



7.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a,

year

54,

mon

th o

f M

agha

in t

he t

enth

da

y of

the

bri

ght

fort

nigh

t(3

20+

54=

374

GE)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edid

ates

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Jaya

vard

hana

, the

son

of

Bha

t .t .i-D

a ma

of

Har

ita-s

agot

ra.

Plot

of l

and

and

a ho

use

entr

uste

d w

ith In

dras

ena

in

the

villa

ge S

alm

alıp

adra

ka. I

t is

a b

rahm

adey

a gr

ant

Brah

mad

eya

give

n fo

r en

joym

ent

of t

he d

onee

. Sh

ift in

the

nat

ure-

not

give

n to

any

god

or

tem

ple.

To

be

enjo

yed

by s

ons,

gra

ndso

ns

and

so o

n.

8.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a,

year

55,

mon

th

of Jy

esht

.ha

in t

he

seve

nth

day

of t

he

brig

ht fo

rtni

ght,

ye

ar 5

6(3

20+

55=

375

/376

GE)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edid

ates

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

a rak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a D

akka

nna

of

Bha

radv

aja-

sago

tra

(cou

ld b

e fr

om D

ecca

n)

Vill

age

Gho

saka

padr

aka.

G

rant

was

forg

ed a

nd h

ad t

o be

rew

ritt

en in

the

yea

r 56

Brah

mad

eya-

kula

grah

ara—

a

bhag

am, (

not

to b

e pa

rtiti

oned

).

9.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a,

year

55,

mon

th o

f Sr

avan

.a in

the

firs

t da

y of

the

bri

ght

fort

nigh

t,(3

20+

55=

375

/GE)

Bhul

un.d .

aw

ho m

edid

ates

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

God

Mah

asen

adev

aW

ho w

as in

stal

led

by

the

kin

g

Thr

ee v

illag

es o

f Bhe

rava

t .ak

a, B

et.t .

apah

aka

and

Puka

ga

situ

ated

in D

urdd

ukav

asa

alon

g w

ith t

he c

hari

ka

(per

haps

pas

ture

land

) ca

lled

Kot

.t .um

anak

a as

per

nor

ms

of d

evag

raha

ra

for

the

perf

orm

ance

of

bali,

cha

ru a

nd s

attr

a an

d in

pro

vidi

ng fo

r sa

ndal

pa

ste,

ince

nse,

flow

ers

and

garl

ands

. Man

trag

an .ac

hary

a,

Tem

ple

serv

ants

and

Pa

supa

tas

wer

e al

low

ed t

o en

joy,

cul

tivat

e an

d in

habi

t th

ese

thre

e vi

llage

s.

10.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a,

year

56,

mon

th

of A

svay

uja

in t

he

thir

teen

th d

ay o

f the

br

ight

fort

nigh

t,(3

20+

56=

376

/GE)

Bhul

un.d .

a

who

med

idat

es

at t

he fe

et o

f Pa

ram

abha

t .t .ar

aka

Val

kha

Tem

ple

(dev

akul

a)

of m

othe

r go

ddes

ses

(mat

rist

hana

) in

the

vill

age

of P

inch

hika

naka

by

the

Pasu

pata

char

ya B

haga

vat

Loko

dadh

i

The

vill

age

of

Pinc

hchh

ikan

aka

itsel

f alo

ng

with

the

mar

shy

gard

en la

nd

of b

hadr

adat

tava

t .aka

gram

a as

per

dev

agra

hara

for

the

perf

orm

ance

of

bali,

cha

ru a

nd s

atra

and

in

pro

vidi

ng fo

r sa

ndal

pa

ste,

ince

nse,

flow

ers

and

garl

ands

. Tem

ple

serv

ants

an

d Pa

supa

tas

wer

e al

low

ed

(Tab

le A

1 co

ntin

ued)



11.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a,

year

57,

mon

th o

f C

haitr

a in

sec

ond

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght,

(320

+57

= 3

77G

E)

Bhul

un.d .

a

who

med

idat

es

at t

he fe

et o

f Pa

ram

abha

t .t .ar

aka

Val

kha

Ary

ya-C

hatu

rvai

dyas

be

long

ing

to v

ario

us

gotr

as a

nd c

hara

n .as

and

perf

orm

ing

vari

ous

vow

s,

aust

eriti

es a

nd s

tudy

ing

thei

r re

spec

tive

Ved

as

Brah

mad

eya

Vill

age

Nim

bapa

drak

a in

the

Ba

ppab

hat .t .

i bhu

kti o

n th

e so

uthe

rn b

ank

of t

he r

iver

N

arm

mad

a (B

hukt

i for

the

fir

st t

ime)

Vill

age

has

been

gra

nted

fo

r en

joym

ent.

12.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a,

year

57,

mon

th

of P

halg

una

in t

he

thir

teen

th d

ay o

f the

da

rk fo

rtni

ght,

(320

+57

= 3

77G

E)

Bhul

un.d .

a

who

med

idat

es

at t

he fe

et o

f Pa

ram

abha

t .t .ar

aka

Val

kha

God

Bap

pa-P

isac

hade

vaV

illag

e of

Kod

rava

talla

ka

at t

he r

eque

st o

f Jay

a, t

he

mes

seng

er o

f Bho

jika-

bhat .

t .a

Band

hula

who

had

inst

alle

d th

e de

ity a

t V

alkh

a its

elf

For

the

perf

orm

ance

of

bali,

cha

ru a

nd s

atra

and

in

pro

vidi

ng fo

r sa

ndal

pa

ste,

ince

nse,

flow

ers

and

garl

ands

Bha

gava

chch

hish

t .as

Tem

ple

serv

ants

and

Pa

supa

tas

wer

e al

low

ed

to e

njoy

, cul

tivat

e an

d in

habi

t th

ese

thre

e vi

llage

s.

(Dev

akul

asri

ta)

13.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a,

year

59

the

thir

teen

th

day

of t

he d

ark

fort

nigh

t,(3

20+

59=

379

GE)

Bhul

un.d .

a

who

med

idat

es

at t

he fe

et o

f Pa

ram

abha

t .t .a r

aka

Val

kha

God

Bap

pa-P

isac

hade

va

inst

alle

d in

the

vis

haya

of

Nar

mm

ada

para

pare

Vill

age

of Ja

yase

nana

ka a

nd

the

erst

whi

le b

rahm

adey

a ks

hetr

a of

the

vill

age

Gar

jana

naka

whi

ch is

en

trus

ted

w

ith A

gnıs

vara

ka. T

his

gran

t w

as m

ade

at t

he r

eque

st o

f In

napa

da

For

the

perf

orm

ance

of

bali,

cha

ru a

nd s

atra

and

in

pro

vidi

ng fo

r sa

ndal

pa

ste,

ince

nse,

flow

ers

and

garl

ands

. Bha

gava

chch

hish

t .as

Tem

ple

serv

ants

and

Pa

supa

tas

wer

e al

low

ed

to e

njoy

, cul

tivat

e an

d in

habi

t th

ese

thre

e vi

llage

s.

(Dev

akul

asri

ta)

(Tab

le A

1 co

ntin

ued)

No.

Nam

e of

Insc

ript

ions

Don

orPl

ace

of

Issu

eD

onee

Loca

tion

Oth

er In

form

atio

n



Tab

le A

2. D

onat

ions

by

Oth

er R

uler

s to

Bra

hman

.as

Nam

e of

the

Gra

ntD

onor

Plac

e of

Issu

eD

onee

Loca

tion

Purp

ose

Gra

nt o

f Sva

mid

asa,

yea

r 63

, mon

th o

f Kar

ttik

a, in

th

e fir

st d

ay o

f the

dar

k fo

rtni

ght

(320

+63

= 3

83G

E)

Mah

araj

a Sv

amid

asa

w

ho m

edid

ates

at

th

e fe

et o

f Pa

ram

abha

t .t .ar

aka

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a S

hash

t .hid

atta

of

Aup

aman

ya s

agot

raV

illag

e K

ukku

t .ana

ka t

o th

e ea

st o

f Kat .

t .ang

apad

ra o

n th

e so

uthe

rn b

ank

of t

he

Nar

mad

a as

per

nor

ms

of

Brah

mad

eyag

raha

ra

For

here

dita

ry e

njoy

men

t fr

om s

on t

o gr

ands

on

Gra

nt o

f Sva

mid

asa,

yea

r 63

, mon

th o

f Kar

ttik

a, in

th

e ei

ghth

day

of t

he d

ark

fort

nigh

t

Mah

araj

a Sv

amid

asa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Ary

ya C

hatu

rvva

idya

pada

s,

resi

dent

in V

alkh

aA

ryya

Cha

turv

aidy

as

belo

ngin

g to

var

ious

go

tras

and

cha

ran .a

s an

d pe

rfor

min

g va

riou

s vo

ws,

au

ster

ities

and

stu

dyin

g th

eir

resp

ectiv

e V

edas

Vill

age

of D

aman

anak

a,

lyin

g in

Udu

mba

raga

rtta

pa

thak

a on

the

fart

her

bank

of

the

Nar

mm

ada.

Thi

s vi

llage

was

ent

rust

ed w

ith

Man

dara

For

here

dita

ry

enjo

ymen

t an

d fr

ee fr

om

encr

oach

men

t.N

o ex

ecut

or m

entio

ned

Gra

nt o

f Sva

mid

asa,

yea

r 65

, mon

th o

f Vai

sakh

a, in

th

e si

xth

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

(320

+65

= 3

85G

E)

Mah

araj

a Sv

amid

asa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a P

a nch

a

belo

ngin

g to

Vat

sa-s

agot

ra.

Thi

s la

nd w

as e

ntru

sted

w

ith D

adhi

panc

haka

A p

lot

of la

nd ly

ing

to t

he

nort

h-w

est

of V

an.a

vasi

nı.

Brah

mad

eya

gran

t fo

r he

redi

tary

enj

oym

ent.

Exec

utor

is V

arah

a Pr

atih

ara.

Gra

nt o

f Sva

mid

asa,

yea

r 65

, mon

th o

f Bha

drap

ada,

in

the

seco

nd d

ay o

f the

dar

k fo

rtni

ght

(320

+65

= 3

85G

E)

Mah

araj

a Sv

amid

asa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Mat

ujja

bel

ongi

ng t

o K

asya

pa-s

agot

raO

ne p

lot

of la

nd u

nder

th

e en

joym

ent

of

Yaj

nagr

ahar

aka

and

one

mor

e pl

ot fo

rmer

ly u

nder

th

e en

joym

ent

of

Loh

akar

apal

lika

Her

edita

ry e

njoy

men

t

of b

rahm

adey

a

(Tab

le A

2 co

ntin

ued)



Gra

nt o

f Sva

mid

asa,

yea

r 66

, mon

th o

f Ash

ad .ha

, in

the

seco

nd d

ay o

f the

dar

k fo

rtni

ght

(320

+66

= 3

86G

E)

Mah

araj

a Sv

amid

asa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Ary

ya C

hatu

rvai

dyap

adas

, re

sidi

ng (

vast

avya

) in

th

e ca

pita

l Val

kha

(a

dhis

ht.h

ana)

Vill

age

of D

rona

dant

ikan

aka

lyin

g on

the

oth

er b

ank

of

Dom

phag

artt

a in

nav

a-

rash

t .rak

a lo

cate

d in

th

e fa

rthe

r ba

nk o

f the

N

arm

mad

a.

Her

edita

ry e

njoy

men

t

of b

rahm

adey

a

Gra

nt o

f Rud

rada

sa y

ear

68, m

onth

of J

yesh

t .ha,

in

the

fifth

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

(320

+68

= 3

88G

E)

Mah

araj

a R

udra

dasa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Svas

ti V

alkh

a (fi

rst

use

of

Sva

sti)

Ary

ya C

hatu

rvai

dyap

adas

, re

sidi

ng (

vast

avya

) in

the

ca

pita

l Val

kha

Agr

ahar

a vi

llage

C

hara

vaha

ka in

nag

arik

a-pa

thak

a on

the

sou

ther

n ba

nk o

f the

Nar

mm

ada,

th

e vi

llage

Pal

asap

allı

in

Kus

apur

a-pa

thak

a an

d vi

llage

Bhe

t .ana

ka in

G

adhi

naga

ra-p

atha

ka o

n th

e no

rthe

rn b

ank

of t

he

Nar

mm

ada.

Acc

ordi

ng t

o C

hatu

rvai

dya,

ag

raha

ra n

orm

s H

ered

itary

en

joym

ent

of b

rahm

adey

aEx

ecut

or is

Bha

t .t .i

Rud

rada

sa.

Gra

nt o

f Rud

rada

sa y

ear

68, m

onth

of A

shad .

ha in

th

e se

cond

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

(320

+68

= 3

88G

E)

Mah

araj

a R

udra

dasa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

(firs

t us

e of

Om

)Br

ahm

an.a

Var

adev

a

of V

atsa

-sag

otra

Vill

age

of S

alla

kıpr .

isht

.-ha

ka e

ntru

sted

with

Br

ahm

adat

ta

Nor

ms

of k

ulag

raha

ra,

here

dita

ry e

njoy

men

t of

bra

hmad

eya

villa

ge

(bra

hmad

eyik

a gr

ants

) ex

ecut

or R

udra

dasa

Gra

nt o

f Rud

rada

sa y

ear

69, m

onth

of c

haitr

a th

e th

irte

enth

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

(320

+69

= 3

89G

E)

Mah

araj

a R

udra

dasa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a D

antik

a of

A

upam

anya

va-s

agot

raV

illag

e K

okila

vasa

ka in

N

ava-

rash

t .rak

a pa

thak

a

on t

he s

outh

ern

bank

of

the

Nar

mm

ada

Her

edita

ry e

njoy

men

t

of b

rahm

adey

a

Gra

nt o

f Rud

rada

sa y

ear

69, m

onth

of A

svay

uja,

the

th

irte

enth

day

of t

he d

ark

fort

nigh

t (3

20+

69=

389

GE)

Mah

araj

a R

udra

dasa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

From

Pra

chak

asa

Ary

ya C

hatu

rvai

dyap

adas

, re

sidi

ng (

vast

avya

) in

the

ca

pita

l Val

kha

Sank

hika

vasa

ka in

N

ava-

rash

t .rak

a pa

thak

aBr

ahm

adey

agra

hara

, he

redi

tary

enj

oym

ent

exec

utor

is B

hat .t .

i Is

vara

datt

a.

(Tab

le A

2 co

ntin

ued)

Nam

e of

the

Gra

ntD

onor

Plac

e of

Issu

eD

onee

Loca

tion

Purp

ose



Gra

nt o

f Rud

rada

sa y

ear

70,

mon

th o

f Jye

sht .h

a, t

he fi

fth

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

(320

+70

= 3

90G

E)

Mah

araj

a R

udra

dasa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Svas

ti. V

alkh

aBr

ahm

an.a

Var

adat

ta

of K

asya

pa-S

agot

raA

par

t of

land

in t

he v

illag

e of

Dag

dhap

allik

a, e

njoy

ed

as a

bra

hmad

eya

by

Bhut

apal

aka

and

Ary

yada

sa

Nor

ms

of B

rahm

adey

ika-

bhuk

ti. E

xecu

tor

is

Bhat .

t .i Is

vara

datt

a.

Gra

nt o

f bha

t .t .ar

aka

year

10

2 m

onth

of J

yesh

t .ha,

firs

t da

y (3

20+

102=

422

GE)

Mah

araj

a Bh

at .t .a

raka

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Svas

ti. V

alkh

aR

evat

ısar

mm

a of

V

atsy

a-sa

gotr

aA

plo

t of

land

ent

rust

ed

with

Vay

usar

mm

a al

ong

with

pad

dy fi

elds

in t

he

villa

ge o

f Sus

ahan

anak

a in

Asv

asat

i-pat

haka

. Im

port

ant

is t

hat

the

inha

bita

nts

of t

he v

illag

e ar

e al

so t

he in

tend

ed

audi

ence

.

Brah

mad

eyad

atta

. Fie

ld

shou

ld b

e cu

ltiva

ted

Gra

nt o

f bha

t .t .ar

aka

year

12

7 m

onth

of S

rava

na t

enth

da

y of

the

bri

ght

fort

nigh

t (3

20+

127=

447

GE)

Mah

araj

a Bh

at .t .a

raka

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Cha

turv

vaid

yasa

muh

a

of V

alkh

aV

illag

e of

Sı

tala

nagi

nıpa

drak

a in

Bo

t .ila

rasv

a pa

thak

a

Brah

mad

eya

gran

t-ex

ecut

or is

Jaya

nath

a

Gra

nt o

f bha

t .t .ar

aka

year

12

9 m

onth

of K

artt

ika

seve

nth

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

(320

+12

9= 4

49G

E)

Mah

araj

a Bh

at .t .a

raka

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Svas

ti. V

alkh

aC

hatu

rvai

dyas

amuh

a

of v

algu

Rit .

ikag

raha

raka

lyin

g in

G

adhi

naga

ra-p

atha

kaR

esid

ents

of t

he v

illag

e

are

info

rmed

The

kin

g’s

oral

ord

er is

bei

ng

wri

tten

by

rajy

adhi

kr .ita

K

r .ish

n .ena

. Thu

s he

was

the

sc

ribe

. Gra

nt d

eed

of

Bha

t .t .ar

aka

(cha

nge

in

the

form

at)

(Tab

le A

2 co

ntin

ued)



Gra

nt o

f Nag

abha

t .a y

ear

134

mon

th o

f Vai

sakh

a te

nth

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

(320

+13

4= 4

54G

E)

Mah

araj

a Bh

at .t .a

raka

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Cha

turv

iddy

apad

as o

f th

e ca

pita

l Val

kha

Vill

age

of

Nag

avar

ddha

nana

ka in

U

dum

bara

gart

ta-p

atha

ka a

t th

e re

ques

t of

Ary

yika

-Bh

at .t .a

pada

for

the

grow

th

of h

er m

erit

and

fam

e

For

bali,

cha

ru a

nd

Vai

svad

eva

offe

ring

s.

Brah

mad

eya

norm

s. T

he

exec

utor

is S

hast .

idas

a,

bhan .

d .aga

rika

, tre

asur

y of

ficer

.

Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a, y

ears

38

, on

the

13th

day

of t

he

brig

ht fo

rtni

ght

of V

aisa

kha

& 4

7, o

n th

e 3r

d of

the

da

rk fo

rtni

ght

of (

320+

38=

35

8GE

& +

47=

467

GE)

Mah

araj

a Bh

ulun

.d .a

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.as

head

ed b

y A

svad

eva

of K

asya

pa-

sago

tra,

Agn

isar

mm

a of

va

tsa-

sago

tra,

Ska

nda

of B

hara

dvaj

a-sa

gotr

a,

Tun

.d .ık

a of

Kau

tsya

-sa

gotr

a, D

asila

and

V

asul

asar

mm

a of

Kau

sika

-sa

gotr

a, M

ahas

arm

ma

of

Gar

gga-

sago

tra.

The

se

Brah

man

.as

belo

nged

to

the

agra

hara

of A

ryya

D

haro

ddhr .

itaka

of v

atsa

-sa

gotr

a (e

vide

nce

of

mig

ratio

n?)

The

hab

itatio

n si

te

of a

vill

age

know

n as

R

ohya

vaha

ka, w

here

cu

ltiva

tion

has

been

te

rmin

ated

, situ

ated

in

the

fart

her

bank

of

Nar

mm

ada,

to

the

east

of

Isva

rase

nana

ka, t

o th

e no

rth

of K

arju

rika

in

Das

ilaka

palli

-ras

ht.r

a

Her

edita

ry e

njoy

men

t by

the

bra

hman

.as

as p

er

brah

mad

eya

syst

em. T

he

orde

r w

as r

ecou

nted

at

the

requ

est

of t

he a

ssem

bly

of B

rahm

an.a

s an

d w

as p

ut

dow

n in

a c

oppe

r pl

ate

at

the

ver

bal d

irec

tions

of

the

kin

g

(Tab

le A

2 co

ntin

ued)

Nam

e of

the

Gra

ntD

onor

Plac

e of

Issu

eD

onee

Loca

tion

Purp

ose



Gra

nt o

f Bhu

lun .d

.a, y

ear

57,

on t

he 1

2th

day

of P

halg

una

the

dark

fort

nigh

t of

(3

20+

57=

377

GE)

Mah

araj

a Bh

ulun

.d .a

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a K

usar

aka

of

Bhar

adva

ja-s

agot

ra o

n th

e re

ques

t of

Ash

ad .ha

nand

i

Api

ece

of la

nd s

ituat

ed

in U

llada

nası

ma

alon

g w

ith t

he s

urro

undi

ng

mar

shy

land

as

indi

visi

ble

brah

mad

eya.

It w

as

entr

uste

d w

ith K

hudd

atak

a

Her

edita

ry e

njoy

men

t of

bra

hmad

eya-

bhuk

ti.

Prat

ihar

a Sk

anda

is t

he

exec

utor

.

Gra

nt o

f Sva

mid

asa,

yea

r 67

, on

the

5th

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

of Jy

esht

.ha

(3

20+

67=

387

GE)

Mah

araj

a Sv

amid

asa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a M

un.d .

a

of S

an .d .i

lya

gotr

aA

fiel

d si

tuat

ed in

dak

shin .

a –V

alm

ıka-

talla

-vat .

aka

in

Nag

arik

a pa

thak

a. T

his

field

(ks

hetr

a pa

dam

) w

as

entr

uste

d w

ith A

ryya

V

anija

ka.

Prop

er n

orm

s of

br

ahm

adey

a-bh

ukti.

Enj

oy,

culti

vate

and

get

cul

tivat

ed.

Nan

na b

hat .t .

i is

the

exec

utor

.

Gra

nt o

f Rud

rada

sa, y

ear

67,

on t

he 1

0th

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

of C

haitr

a

(320

+67

= 3

87)

Mah

araj

a R

udra

dasa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a H

un.a

d .hya

ka

of K

asya

pa-s

agot

raA

fiel

d en

trus

ted

with

the

po

tter

Ary

yada

sa, s

ituat

ed

in t

he s

outh

wes

tern

bo

unda

ry o

f Das

ilaka

palli

As

per

norm

s of

Br

ahm

adey

a-bh

ukti.

H

ered

itary

enj

oym

ent.

Bhat .

t .i Is

vara

datt

a is

the

ex

ecut

or.

Gra

nt o

f Rud

rada

sa, y

ear

67,

on t

he 1

2th

day

of t

he b

righ

t fo

rtni

ght

of C

haitr

a

(320

+67

= 3

87)

Mah

araj

a R

udra

dasa

w

ho m

edita

tes

at

the

feet

of

Para

mab

hat .t .

arak

a

Val

kha

Brah

man

.a B

haga

va o

f the

K

asya

pa-s

agot

ra.

Uni

nhab

ited

villa

ge (

suny

a gr

ama)

Bhu

tilak

hadd

aka

in

Das

ilaka

palli

pat

haka

.

As

per

norm

s of

Br

ahm

adey

agra

hara

-bhu

kti.

Her

edita

ry e

njoy

men

t. Bh

at .t .i

Isva

rada

tta

is t

he

exec

utor



A hoard of copper-plates: Patronage and the early Valkha State

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Transcript of A hoard of copper-plates: Patronage and the early Valkha State