314 
[No. 4, 
Notes on Two Copper-plate Inscriptions of the Twelfth Century , A. JD., re¬ 
cording Grants of Land by Gomndachandra Leva of Kanauj.—By 
BaTu Ra'jekdrala'la Mitra. 
In April last, I received from Mr. E. T. Atkinson of Allahabad two 
copper plates bearing Sanskrit inscriptions, together with a transcript in 
modern Devanagari and an English translation of one of them. Mr. Atkin¬ 
son informed me that the plates “ had been found in the village of Basahi, 
about two miles north-east of the tahsili town of Bidhuna, in the Etawah 
District. The village is in a small klierd or mound into which a Thakur 
cultivator was digging for bricks to build a house. He came on the remains 
of a pakka house, in the wall of the daldn of which were two recesses (tdk), 
and in each of these recesses was a plate.” 
No. 1, the smaller of the two plates, measures 16 inches, with an average 
breadth of 10^- inches. It has a clasp rivetted on the middle of its upper 
edge to which is attached a chain of two rings of unequal thickness, holding 
a heavy bell-shaped copper seal. The legends on the seal are a figure of 
Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu, and a conch shell, a rude imitation of the 
famous panchajanya conch or war trumpet of that divinity, with the name 
of S H Govindachandra Deva in the middle. The seal is peculiar to the 
last line of the Kanauj kings, and implies that those who adopted it were 
the especial followers of the Vaishnava faith. 
The writing on the plate extends to twenty-two lines, the last begin- 
ing at about the middle of the lower edge. The character is the well-known 
Kutila, deeply cut, and in an excellent state of preservation. 
The record was first sent to Pandit Bapudeva S'astrf, who had it deci¬ 
phered and translated by one of the pandits of the Sanskrit College of Bena¬ 
res. The transcript prepared by the pandit is generally correct, and is 
annexed below with a few slight alterations ; but the translation, being loose 
and periphrastic, has been replaced by another. 
The subject of the inscription is the grant, to an astrologer named 
A'hneka, of a village named Vasabhi, in the canton of Jiavani, in the Etawah 
district. The donor is Raja Govindachandra Deva of Kanauj, and the date 
of the gift, Sunday, the 5tli of the waxing moon in the month of Pausha, 
Samvat 1161, corresponding with the end of December in the year 1103 of 
the Christian era. The boundary of the village is given in full, and Mr. Aik- 
man, who communicated the plate to Mr. Atkinson, identifies the place 
with the modern khera village of Basahi where the record was found. He 
says, “ The only name like Jiavani in Pargannah Bidhuna is Jiva Sirsani, 
about ten miles south-east of Bidhuna, which has a large khera. The name 
