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By H. K. Narasimhaswami, B.Sc., Madras.

The set of plates containing the inscription edited below was discovered in the village of agora in the Gudivada taluk of the Kistna District by the villagers while ploughing « field. The plates are now in the posemion of Vidvan Piryakutumba Rao of Gudjayalléra, from whom | secured them during my tour in the district in November 1996, Tho inscription has been reviewed in the Annual Report on South Indian Epigraphy for that year (Appendix A, No. 4) and I now publish it with the kind permission af the Superintendent for Epigraphy.

‘The set consists of five plates strung on to an oval ring #)° by 4)" and weighs together with the ring 287 folaz, The ring does not bear any seal. The plates measure 10° by 4]° each and are inveribed on both the sides including the first. and the last. The writing is in an excellent state of preservation. The inscription is in the Telugu script of the medieval period. The alphabet does not call for any xpecial comment except that the letter bia ia written with or without the mark of aspiration at the bottom, 4s in -nabhér= in |. 6, gagan-ébha in |. 28, etc., but it invariably occurs without it when the vowel signs d or @ are attached to it or whem it ooours in a conjunct consonant, #g-, badge (I, 2), bhi-dana (1. 9), bhtipad (1. 18), ete. and “d-bhayarasd (|. 21), efprebhyah (L 32), eto, The letter rt ia written like the modern Liu without its lower atroke of aspiration but with an additional Lommiw or w sign attached to it (IL #6, 39, 41, eto.), The whole record is written in Sanskrit verse and prose, except the portion specifying the boundaries of the village granted, which ia in ‘Telugu (Il. 67 to 72), Lines | to 82 consist. of fourteen verses in different metres While lines 33 to 66, in which the donces with their respective shares are specified, are in prose, The inscription enda with the usual impreeatory verses and a verse which gives the name of the post who composed the grant (ll. 72 to 77). In respect of orthography the following points may be noted >—{a) The use of the anwendra instead of the class nasal and the unnecessary doubling of the following consonant as in jogarhite for jaganti (1. 1), “verittau for °rantaw and rath@eigga for rathdnga (1. 4), eto. ; (6) doubling of the consonant after the répha as in Airtti (1. 12), “rapeibhinnd (1. 15), Yajur-rotdi (L 42), ete, ; (c) incorrect omission of the aspirate ag in Partta for Partha (1. 15), and the sonant for the surd as in. tidhaw for tithaw (I. 29), Radhitara for Rae thitara (1, 60), In rya the r is always written in full and the secondary form of ya attached to it as at present,

The grant belongs to the time of king Ana-Véta of the Reddi dynasty of Kondavidu.

.,, ‘The insoription opens with » verse in praise of the Boar incarnation of Vishyu. The subsequent ‘Swaine verses which ure identical with those of the Pachchani-Tandiparrn grant of Ana-Véma* recount, in order, the praise of the Sun and the Moan (v. 2), the birth of the fourth caste, 4c. that of the Sadras from the lotus-fect. of Vishyu and the birth in it of Prolayu-Véma who constructed the fight of stops Jeading to Srisaila, made all the gifts enumerated by Himidri, parformed various meritorious deeds and who defeated several hostile kings (wv. $7), To him were born Ana-Véta and Ana-Vima who were in splendour, like the Sun and the Moon (¥. 8). The next three verses ure devoted to the desoription of the might and valour of Ans-Véta, the donor of the grant, who instilled fear into the hearts of his enomies by the very sound of his war-drums (vv, 9-12). In the Baka year 4280 (expressed by the chronogram gagana 0, ibha 8, and siirya 12)im the month of Pausha, on daréa, Tuesday, during the solar eclipse, ling Ana-Véta granted to sixty-one Brahmans of different gotras and abhas, the village of Kédirn renamed Annavétapuram, on the bank of the Malépaha, along with the emht kinds of tr ee eS, nee

t Above, Vol. XXI, p. 260. "