1882.] n. L. Mitra— 0;i a Copper-plate from Cutback. 9 



The following papers were read — 

 1. Hofe on a Gopper^plate Grant from Outtach. — By Rajendrilala. 

 MiTKA, LL. D., C. I. E. 



In August last Mr. C. H. Tawnej sent me, for decipherment, an 

 inscription recorded on three plates of copper, which, he informed me, had 

 been found at Cuttack by J. Winterscale, Esq. As Mr. Winterscale left 

 Calcutta soon after, no information could be obtained as to the exact locale 

 of the discovery of the plates, nor of the circumstances under which it was 

 found.* 



The plates measure 8-8 x 5-6 inches each, their thickness being one- 

 tenth of an inch. They are held together by a thick copper ring with a 

 clasp over the point where the two ends of the ring join. There is a 

 misshappen knob on the clasp on which was formerly fixed a seal, which, 

 however, having been badly soldered, has fallen off, and is now lost. 



The plates are inscribed longitudinally, the first and the last on the 

 inner side only, and the middle one on both sides. The number of lines in- 

 scribed on each side is thirteen, except on the last plate, on which there are 

 thirteen lines and a half. The letters are of the Kutila type, and in an ex- 

 cellent state of preservation, except in a few places on the first and the last 

 plates. 



The language of the record is Sanskrit, and the purport, the gift of a 

 village named Yantralenu, in district Sammani, in the province of Kosala, 

 to one Uttamasaddharana, a Yajur Vedic Brahman of Takara. The donor 

 was ostensibly Maharaja Mahadevagupta, son of S'ivagupta, but really a 

 petty chief of Kosala, of the name of Kandarpadeva, who, not being himself 

 competent according to the Smriti to grant land, which theoretically be- 

 longs to the paramount power, invokes his name, and dates it after him on 

 the 13th of the waxing moon in the month Margas'irsha (November-Decem- 

 ber), in the 31st year of his reign. 



The name of the ostensible donor has nowhere else been met with, but 

 that of his father occurs in a copper-plate grant noticed by Babu Kangalala 

 Banurji in the Journal for 1877 (XLVI, Pt. I, pp. 149/). That record was 



* Since writing the above I have seen a letter from Mr. Winterscale to the Secre- 

 tary to the Society in which he gives the following account of his discovery of the plate : 



' The copper plate was found by me in 1879 at a place called Chowdwar, about 3 

 miles from the left bank of the river Mahanadi. About the year 1600 Chowdwar was 

 the stronghold of the Maharattas. I believe a copper plate was found about 1875 near 

 the same place ; it was deciphered by Babu Rangalala Banurji, a Deputy Collector 

 and Deputy Magistrate. The plate found by me was only about 3 feet underground, 

 and was covered with verdigris, &c. I tried to get the writing deciphered here, and had 

 the plate cleaned by the aid of limes, &c., but otherwise it has not been meddled with 

 in any way : the seal was damaged when I found it.' 



