116 
Dr. Hoerrd e — Tivo Copper-plate Grants of Ratnapdla. [No. 1, 
(that capital) was crowded with a dense forest, as it were, of arms of his 
brave soldiers who were hankering after the plunder of the camps of all 
his enemies, jet was it fit to be inhabited by wealthy people (merchants.) 
(In it) the disk of the sun was hid 14 (from view) by the thousands of 
plastered turrets which are rendered still whiter by the nectar-like 16 
smiles of the love-drunk fair damsels (standing on them). It was 
frequented by many hundreds of well-to-do people l6 , just as a forest 
planted on the heights of the Malaya mountains (is frequented) by 
snakes. It is adorned by learned men, religious preceptors and poets 
who have made it their place of resort, just as the sky is adorned 
by Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. 17 It resembles the summit of mount 
Kailasa in being the residence of the Parameyvnra (i.e., supreme 
ruler, or £ivn, the supreme God), and in being inhabited by a Vitteya 
(f.e., a master of wealth, or Kuvera the God of wealth). 13 Like the 
cloth which protects the king’s broad chest, its boundaries were 
encompassed by a rampart, furnished with a fence strong like that 
used for the game-birds of the pakas, fit to cause chagrin to the 
king of Gurjara, to give fever to the heads of the untameable elephants 
of the chief of Gauda, to act like bitumen in the earth to the lord of 
Kerala, to strike awe into the Bahikas and Ta’ikas, to cause discom¬ 
fiture (lit., pulmonary consumption) to the master of the Deccan country ; 
and generally to serve for the purpose of discomfiting the (king’s ) 
enemies. It is rendered beautiful by the river Lauhitya which gives 
relief to the fair damsels, that after the exertion of sexual enjoyment 
ascend to the retirement of their stuccoed turrets, by the spray of its 
current gently wafted up by the breeze charmingly resonant with the 
prattle of the flocks of love-drunk females of the Kala-hamsa ducks ; 
(Second Plate: reverse:) and which (river) also resembles the 
cloth of the finely wrought flags carried by the elephants of Kailasa, and 
1 4 I have adopted the reading antarhita in my translation (see text, note 71). 
The original reads anta-hrta, which would mean ‘obstructed by the ends’ (or points) 
of the thousands of pinnacles. 
15 There is here a verbal conceit in the original which is untranslateable. Saudlia 
means ‘ plastered,’ and sudhd means both ‘ nectar’ and ‘ whitewash.’ 
There is here a complicated verbal conceit, which cannot be exactly translated. 
Bhogin means both a ‘well-to-do, pleasure-loving man’ and ‘a snake.’ The 
Malaya mountains, with its fragrant breezes, will suit the former, while the forest 
will suit the latter. 
H Here is again a verbal conceit: ludha means both ‘ a learned man ’ and ‘ Mer¬ 
cury ; ’ guru both ‘ a religious preceptor ’ and ‘ Jupiter,’ and havya both ‘ a poet ’ and 
‘ Venus.’ The capital was to the men, what the sky is to the planets. 
18 There is here an obvious play on the words paramegvara and vitteya which 
are epithets of the king as well as of a god. 
