Early Mediaeval North Indian Copper-Plate Grants

Wednesday, 1 June 2005
15.15 - 16.30

Leiden University
Building 1103, Nonnensteeg 1-3, Room 329

Public Lecture by Alexander Stolyarov

Grants-usually of land--inscribed on Copper-Plate (CP) are a complex source for the history of early mediaeval India (ca. 4 - 13 A.D.). They are the subject of two auxiliary historical disciplines, i.e., epigraphics (the study of inscriptions and texts written on "eternal" material) and diplomatics (the study of charters and acts and other archival records).

The inscriptions inform us about events that happened at particular places and times. Most of them are king's edicts about his gifts of land (often with village attached) to some religious beneficiary (temple, monastery, group of monks, priest, Brahman, etc).

Like all such edicts or acts the CP grants have an elaborate inner structure that includes such components as a preamble (with references to God, religious devotion, the public good and the donor), announcement of the edict, prohibitions of infringement, signs of certification (including place and time) and so on.

Their outer form may vary depending on place, dynasty and time (between 1-11 tablets may be used, together with different script orientations, etc).

The most important feature of the plates themselves is that they are large and at the same time discrete. This implies a good possibility for structural comparative research.