The Chamak copper plates are an epigraphic record of the Vākāṭaka dynasty, documenting a land donation to

brāhmaṇas The Brahmanas (; Sanskrit: , IAST: ''Brāhmaṇam'') are Vedic śruti works attached to the Samhitas (hymns and mantras) of the Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Vedas. They are a secondary layer or classification of Sanskrit texts embedded wi ...

in the reign of king Pravarasena II in the fifth century CE. They were found at Chamak, in District

Amravati Amravati (/Marathi phonology, əmᵊɾɑʋᵊt̪iː/) is a city in Maharashtra located in the Vidarbha region. It is the ninth largest city in Maharashtra, India & second largest city in the Vidarbha region in terms of population. It is the ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Location

Chamak or Chammak is located 6.0 miles southwest of Acalpur according to Amravati district ''Gazetteer'' published by the Government of Maharashtra. According to J. F. Fleet the village is four miles s. w. of Ilichpur (Ellichpur). This is the old name for

Achalpur Achalpur (), formerly known as Ellichpur and Illychpur, is a city and a municipal council in Amravati District in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the second most populous city in Amravati District after Amravati and seventh most populous ...

. Chamak currently consists of a cluster of three villages on the banks of the Chandrabhāgā river with those on the eastern bank known as Chamak Khurd and Chamak Buzurg. The plates were found in a field near the village in the 19th century and were acquired by Major H. Szczepanski. They are now in the collection of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

registered under the number Ind. Ch. no. 16. Chamak Khurd

Publication

The Chamak copper-plate charter was read and published by John Faithfull Fleet in 1888. The record was subsequently published by V. V. Mirashi in 1963.V. V. Mirashi, ''Inscriptions of the Vākāṭakas'', CII 5 (Ootacamund, 1963), available online at https://archive.org/details/corpusinscriptio014677mbp

Description and Contents

The Chamak charter consists of a series of copper plates linked together with a ring held with a seal. The text of the inscription is

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

throughout. The object of the inscription is to record the grant, by Pravarasena II, of the village Charmāka situated on the bank of the Madhunadī in the ''rājya'' of Bhojakaṭa. The grant consisted of 8000 ''bhūmi-s'' by the royal measure. The donees were a "thousand Brāhmaṇas", although only 49 are actually named. The grant was made at the request of Koṇḍarāja, the son of Śatrughnarāja. This Koṇḍarāja is also mentioned in line 45 of the Pattan copper plates. The grant is dated on the thirteenth ''tithi'' of the bright fortnight of Jyeṣṭha in the 18th regnal year. The ''senāpati'' was Citravarman. From the Belorā copper plates, Set B, we know that Citravarman was holding the same post seven years earlier in the 11th regnal year of Pravarasena II.

Metrics

The seal carries a verse in

anuṣṭubh (, ) is a metre and a metrical unit, found in both Vedic and Classical Sanskrit poetry, but with significant differences. By origin, an anuṣṭubh stanza is a quatrain of four lines. Each line, called a ''pāda'' (lit. "foot"), has eight syll ...

metre.

Notes

External links