318 
Pranuath Pandit —Note on the Chittagong Copper-plate. [No. 4, 
tiie mortar mixed with broken brick, are identically the same. The solidity 
of the buildings, some of which, not more than fifteen feet square, have 
walls five feet thick, would indicate that earthquakes were as prevalent in 
those days as now, and perhaps more destructive ; yet in spite of their massive 
construction very few have escaped the effects of the shocks, for greait rents 
are visible in nearly every pucca building of any antiquity in this district. 
Between Jaysagar and Sibsagar are numerous dhols and tombs and 
a large two-storeyed brick building, called the Rangghar, which is in a 
fairly perfect state. The smaller buildings are buried in long grass. When 
an opportunity occurs, a careful investigation shall be made of the most 
interesting of them. 
Note on the Chittagong Copper-plate , dated &"aka 11G5, or A. T). 1243, 
presented to the Society by A. L. Clay, Esq., C. S .—By Pbanna'th 
Pandit, M. A. 
(With a plate.) 
The plate, transcript and translation of which have been given below, 
measures about 7-§- inches in length and 7 inches in breadth, with an extreme 
thickness of one-eighth of an inch. It has a curvature at the top, which 
would seem to have been designed to serve the purpose of a handle. The 
extreme length from the tip of the curvature is over 9 inches. In this 
space are delineated, on the first face the figure of a crescent surmounted 
by a sun, symbolical of the gift’s enduring* as long as the sun and the moon 
shall exist in the heavens ; and on the second face, the figure of Vishnu riding 
on Garuda, which would denote that the dynasty was Vaishnava in religion, 
a fact borne out by the three names mentioned in the plate, which are all 
synonyms of Vishnu, and also by the fact of the first sloka being addressed 
to that divinity. The plate is engraved on both sides with characters which 
bear a close resemblance to those on the Tipara copper-plate, translated by 
Colebrooke in Vol. IX. of the Asiatic Researches, and Vol. II. of his 
Miscellaneous Essays ; and to use the language there used “ the character 
agrees nearly with that now in use in Bengal; but some of the letters bear 
a close resemblance to the writing of TirhutA f The engraver has been hard- 
pressed for space on the second face, and was obliged towards the conclusion 
* Compare ■R ■^T^TT^ i n sloka 6 of the Tipara copper-plate, Colebrooke, 
Vol. II. p. 243, in the Gurjjara grant in J. R. 
A. S., New series, Vol. I, p. 275. in the Ujjayini plate, 
Colebrooke, II, p. 308. 
f Miscellaneous Essays by H. T. Colebrooke. London, 1837, Vol. II., p. 242. 
