156 Notes on Three Copper Sasanams. [No. 3, 



be incapable of being read by learned natives, who could most 

 readily turn these almost solitary memorials of the ancient history 

 of their country to proper account. 



" Plates No. 2, and No. 3, are similar grants of villages to 

 brahmans. Both of them are written in the Sanscrit language, and 

 the mixed characters used in them are of two somewhat later forms 

 of that in which No. 1 is written ; but the engraving of No. 2 and 

 No. 3, is of an inferior kind and carelessly done, and, therefore, 

 the forms of some of the letters cannot always be fixed with cer- 

 tainty. Several of the letters are also partially or wholly obliter- 

 ated. Some of the letters of the Devanagari character are intro- 

 duced in these two grants, while the corresponding letters of the 

 ' cave alphabet,' seem to be quite familiar to the engraver. This 

 seems to show that, at the time when these grants were made, the 

 Devanagari alphabet was growing into use, but had not yet super- 

 seded the older characters. 



" No. 2, which is the shorter of the two inscriptions on the 

 thicker plates, having only three sides of writing, is a grant of a 

 village, the name of which I have not been able to make out, by 

 Shri Ananta Varmma Deva, the son of Shri Jaya Yarmma Deva, 

 to a brahman named Vishnu Sharmma of the Gautama Jatra, to 

 commemorate an eclipse of the moon. 



" No. 3, is a similar grant of the village of Pankipachri to 

 Ajyashthamayya Sharmma, the son of Susugaya Sharmma, of the 

 Sohita G-otra, by Shri Eajendra Yarmma Deva Raja, the son of 

 Ananta Yarmma Deva, (the donor of No. 2,) the son of Jaya Yarm- 

 ma Deva, to commemorate an eclipse of the sun. 



" I have not been able to identify the series of princes here 

 named. A king of the name of Jaya Yarmma Deva, the only one 

 of this name which I can find, reigned in Malwa in A. D., 1143 5 

 but his pedigree does not correspond with that of these grants. 

 ' Deva Raja' was a common title of one of the dynasties of the 

 Orissa princes ; but the donors of these grants are not amongst 

 them." 



Translation of Inscription JS T o. 1. 



Prosperity. The royal moon risen above the ocean of the 

 glorious Chalakya race, whose two lotus-like feet glitter with the 



