Vol. VI, No. 8.] The Kotwalipara Spurious Grant. 433 



[N.S.] 



In shorter grants this portion is written in prose and gives the 

 titles of the king. 



(2) The second portion is invariably written in prose and 

 contains the announcement of the grant to the various officers 

 concerned. This portion also contains the details about the 

 grant, e.g., the particular division, district or sub-di vision in 

 which the land or village granted was situated. 



(3) Some imprecatory verses generally taken from some 

 of the Dharma Sastras are added at the end. In some cases 

 the date is given after these imprecatory verses. 



This grant differs from the majority of copper-plate grants 

 discovered up to date in the following particulars : — 



(1) The king does not seem to be the donor, or to have 

 consented, or to have sanctioned the grant. 



(2) The name of the donor cannot be made out from the 

 wording of this grant. 



(3) The officers concerned in a particular grant are never 

 mentioned by name: at least no such instance has been dis- 

 covered up to date. 



(4) Supratikasvami seems to be the agent by whom the 

 various officers mentioned in lines 4 to 8 are informed about 

 the grant. But the very same man is again mentioned in line 

 17. The construction of this line is ambiguous, but it seems 

 that he is the man to whom the grant was made. For example, 

 compare the statement in lines 9 to 12, where he says, "By 

 your grace I intend to settle for ever in order to spread the 

 sacrificial rites in this world." The wording of this line too is 

 also very ambiguous, and I am not quite sure as to the exact- 

 ness of the above translation. Such a statement, viz., the 

 expression of the grantee's intention, is very odd in the word- 

 ing of a copper-plate grant and, so far as I know, has not been 

 met with before. The employment of the recipient of a grant 

 as a Dutaka is again extremely unusual, and I believe no such 

 case has been met with up to date. 



The wording of the copper-plate, as I have already stated, 

 is very ambiguous, and it cannot be made out who is the real 

 donor. It is quite certain that the king mentioned in line 2 is 

 not the donor. The grant may have been made by the officers 

 mentioned on the obverse, but this is not certain. In any case, 

 when a subordinate officer, or a number of officers, or a private 

 personage makes a grant, it is absolutely necessary to obtain 

 the royal sanction to it. Similar cases have already been met 

 with : compare the Kamauli grant of the Singara Chief Vatsa- 

 raja of the Vikrama year 1191 = 1134 A.D. 1 



The contents of lines 12 and 13 are quite unintelligible. 

 Here and there words of Sanskritic origin are to be found 



1 Epi. IncL, vol. iv, p. 131. 



