Archaeology is a branch of study which studies man's past through his material remains. It comprises several branches including excavation, epigraphy, protection of monuments, up keep of museums, registration of antiquities, study of numismatics, decipherment of manuscripts etc.
The political and social history of any nation can be written only on the basis of contemporary evidences. Inscriptions and copper plates are foremost among them. India, a nation having a long heritage possesses very many numbers of such documents.
Tamil Nadu has the unique distinction of having not only the largest number of stone inscriptions, but also the largest number of copper plate grants.
An epigraph or inscription is known as "sasanam" which in Sanskrit means a comm and or order. A majority of the inscriptions refer to the royal commands granting land or other privileges to temples and other institutions, besides learned Brahmins well versed in Vedic lore.
Incidentally, the inscriptions throw light upon the administration, economic condition of the people, the nature of taxation, commerce and conditions of the mercantile community etc. A careful study of the inscriptions reveals various aspects of the social life and conditions in those days. They are also useful for a study of the growth of language and literature.
The copper plate grant, in addition to the above, contains information about the ancestry and genealogy of the king. It narrates how the king ordered the gift of the grant and closes with imprecatory verses.
The bulk of the epigraphic material was prompted by religious motives and not by a desire to record the past history. All the religious faiths are represented in the epigraphs as the recipients of the donations and endowments, with Saiva and Vaishnava faiths figuring predominently. There are donative records and occasionally votive tablets also. There are also grants bearing testimony to the relations between South India and foreign islands.
This catalogue of the Copper-plate grants preserved in the Government Museum, Chennai contains a short description of each of the grants, one hundred and seventy-two copper-plates that have been received from 1918 up to May 2010. This is the second catalogue of this series. The first catalogue was published in 1918 containing more than 200 copper-plate grants. It went out of stock for some time and a second edition was made in 2000. This shows the popularity of the publication among the scholars and students. The information they contain forms the primary source for Indian Archaeology and History of South India. They range from 9th century CE to 19th Century CE, from the Pallava period to the reign of Petty Zamindars.
The languages of these grants vary from Prakrit, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese, Malayalam to Modern Tamil. The script used varies according to the dynasties; and also of the localities where, and the period when, the grants were issued. Most of these grants are donative records dealing with gifts made by the kings, usually of land, which may extend to entire villages. They were executed on days specially selected because they were auspicious, such as solar and lunar eclipses. They are usually dated some times in the regnal year of the king, or other times in the Kaliyuga or in the Saka era. In certain cases astronomical data are given and their date would be decided on the basis of the ephemeris data.
Each of these records opens, as a rule, with a verse invoking the blessings of their tutelary deity, and followed by a more or less imaginary genealogy of the king, tracing his ancestry back to mythical founder of the dynasty, and sometimes stating the number of regnal years, or certain historical events.
In the present catalogue the grants are arranged in alphabetical order, dynasty-wise containing data as they were recorded in the Museum's Accession Register. In the case of each grant its nature is described briefly, i.e., the number of plates employed and the features of the seal, if one is present, the language and script and followed by a brief description of the content, and finally references to publications in which full description have appeared. Some of the plates like the following are very important:
A set of eleven copper plates of Pallava King Nandivarman, about 8th Century CE, strung on a ring with a seal bearing the figure of a bull, record that the King gave the village of Ekadhiramangalam to a Brahman in the 22nd year of his regnal year.
Hindu (948)
Agriculture (125)
Ancient (1105)
Archaeology (814)
Architecture (568)
Art & Culture (933)
Biography (731)
Buddhist (550)
Cookery (166)
Emperor & Queen (588)
Islam (245)
Jainism (325)
Literary (889)
Mahatma Gandhi (393)
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