JOURNAL 
01’ THE 
ASIATIC SOCIETY. 
Part I.—HISTORY, LITEEATUEE, &c. 
No. Ill—1871. 
Notes on, and Translation of, two Copper-plate Inscriptions from JBdman- 
ghati.—By Barit Prata'pachandra Ghosiia, B. A., Assistant 
Secretary, Asiatic Society, Bengal. 
[With two plates.] 
In March, last Mr. Wood-Mason, Assistant Curator, Indian 
Museum, handed me two copper tablets bearing inscriptions. 
•These, he said, had been found buried in the ground, and were 
forwarded to him by a gentleman of Chaibasa, Singblium. The 
plates, when I received them, were so much covered with rust 
and mud, that I could entertain little hope of ever being able 
to decipher them. Immersion in cocoa-nut oil, however, seemed 
considerably to improve the appearance of the tablets, and in 
May last I took out the plates and had them well rubbed over 
with a brush, so as to remove all rust. This I succeeded in 
doing with the help of two weak vegetable acids, tamarind and lime 
juice. The inscriptions on the tablets after this operation ap¬ 
peared to be legible, but still at places they were so deeply eaten 
into as to necessitate my using a blunt knife, to remove the scaly 
rust which stuck to them with some degree of adhesion, but to 
little advantage, and after several attempts at cleaning the tablets, 
I gave up the idea of being able to do anything with them. In July, 
however, it struck me that dilute sulphuric acid, if judiciously 
21 
r. 
