1884. j On a Land- Grant of Mahendrapdla Deva of Kanauj. 321 



On a Land- Grant of Mahendrap&la Deva of Kanauj. — By Babu 

 Ka je^dealala Mitea, Corresponding Member of the 



German Oriental Society. 



In 1848 Mr. J. W. Laidlay, then editor of the Journal, published 

 a translation, by me, of a Sanskrita inscription incised on a large slab 

 of copper which had been presented to the Society by the late Col. 

 J. C. Stacy. It was the record of a gift of land by a prince of the 

 royal house of Mahodaya (Kanauj), and remarkable for being sur- 

 mounted by a figure of Bhagavati and the genealogy of the princes 

 named, cast in relief on a tablet of brass. A counterpart of that 

 document has lately been found in the village of Dighwa Doobaneshar, 

 in the Pergunnah of Manghee, Zillah Sarun. Mr. P. Peppe, to whom 

 I am indebted for a transcript of the record, was informed that " it 

 was dug out of a field some years ago by a Dighwaet Brahman of 

 Chhaprah ;" but Mr. James Cosserat of Motihari, who has favoured the 

 Society with a carefully prepared facsimile of the monument, learnt on 

 enquiry of the owners that " their ancestors found it in a temple in a 

 ruined Musalman fort in that village, but it was so long ago that 

 they did not seem to have any distinct tradition about it, nor to be 

 able to give any authentic information on the subject." The weight of 

 the plate, according to him, is thirty seers. The surmounting tablet 

 he says " is a casting apparently of iron with a mixture of copper, and 

 the letters raised. It appears of older date than the lower portion of 

 copper engraved. There is a small figure of an idol at the summit ; 

 the part left uncopied is a cornice and the idol itself (very indistinct) 

 which I have found it beyond the power of the natives here to take an 

 impression of. The whole of the inscription, however, has been got. 

 The upper portion has been roughly but securely joined to the lower 

 or larger and engraved part. The plate has suffered from fire, the traces 

 of which appear in the indistinctness of parts of the impression." 



The size of the monument, the style of the character incised on it 

 and the tablet and the figure of Bhagavati which surmount it, bear 

 so close a resemblance to those of the Stacy plate that the two 

 documents seem to have been prepared by the same artist, and inscrib- 

 ed by the same engraver. The genealogy of both begins with the 

 same prince, Devas'akti Deva, but while the Dighwa plate ends with 

 the sixth descendant Mahendrapala Deva ; the Stacy record carries it 



2x2 



