40 
U. C. Batavyal— Copper-plate Grant of Dharmaptila. [No. 1, 
each generation, we obtain 800 A. D., as the date of Bhatta Narayana. 
This closely agrees with Cunningham’s conclusions deduced from other 
sources of information. 
The date of the copper-plate record, may, therefore, be roughly put 
down, in the present state of our knowledge, as 800 A.D. It is thus 
nearly 3100 years old. 
In external appearance it closely resembles the Plate of Narayana 
Pala, described on page 217, Volume II., of Kajendra Lala Mitra’s “ Indo- 
Aryans” though it is older than the latter. 1 2 
The Plate is about Jth of an inch thick, and is oblong in shape, and 
has 33 lines of inscription in front, and 29 lines on the reverse. The 
whole has been deciphered by myself. In one or two places the reading 
is a tentative one—subject to revision : but upon the whole it may bo 
taken as a correct re-production. The letters mark the stage of the tran¬ 
sition of the Devanagari into the Bangali. Some of the strokes are 
obsolete at the present day. 
The current traditions about Bhatta Narayana were a puzzle to 
the historical student in more respects than one. According to some 
writers, Bhatta Narayana was invited to Bengal by king Adi^ura: 
but according to the older genealogists—as for instance the famous 
Devivara , the contemporary of Caitanya ,—the name of tho Brahman 
of the (Jandilya gotra , who came at the invitation of Adi^ura, was 
Ksiti^a. Then, again; while some writers state that Bhatta Narayana 
was a contemporary of Ad^ura, and place Adi^ira in the end of the 
10tli century of the (Jaka Era, another tradition makes Adigai Ojha, 
son of Bhatta Narayana, a contemporary of king Dharma Pfila, who, 
as we have seen, lived at the end of the 8tli century of the Christian 
Era. This last tradition 3 says that king Dharma Pala made the grant 
1 It measures 1' 4f" x Ilf" inches, and has a scalloped top of brass 7 inches 
high, and 4 inches long at the base, bearing what seems to be an impression of tho royal 
seal. The centre of the top is enclosed in a ring of 4 circles, the innermost of 
which is 2| inches, and the outermost 4 inches in diameter. Around these circles 
are six projections representing, probably, lotus petals, the two uppermost of which 
enclose what seems to be the effigy of a human head. The emblem in the centre 
is a wdieel mounted on a stand, and supported by a deer rampant on each side. 
Below this is written between two parallel lines Qrimdn Dharmapdla Devah , 
and below this writing is a sprig formed of a flower and two leaves. 
2 It has been preserved in the genealogical record of the Lahiris, to which 
allusion has been made above. It runs as follows:— 
i 
