There is the database of Early Mediaeval North Indian Land Grants that are generally written on copper plates and partly on stones. Its working name is “Diplomatica Indica DataBase” or DIDB. It was accomplished during my several stays at the IIAS where I was working at the Biblioteek Instituut Kern in spring seasons (March-May) of 2005 and 2006 as Gonda fellow, also in October-November of 2008, in May-June of 2009, June-July of 2010, July-August of 2011 and May-June of 2012 as IIAS research fellow.

The “Diplomatica Indica Database” (DIDB) is the object of study of this project. It has the web-interface and consists of several tables. At the moment there are two main tables: 1) Copperplates” consisting of more than 1260 entries and 2) Publications” consisting of about 3270 entries. There are more than 30 fields (or properties) for filling out the 1) “Copperplates” table of DB and 8 fields for filling out the 2) “Publications” table. Namely they are for 1) “Copperplates” such as: Code (or Number), Name (of inscription), State (modern division and name), District (modern division and name), Century (Christian era), Year (Christian era), (name of the) Dynasty, (name of the) Ruler, Donor, (kind of) Donation, Donee, (number of) Plates (with the designation of the sides on which the text was incised), Size (of plates), (number of) Lines, Arenga (number of lines for preamble, including genealogical part), Sanction (number of lines for imprecatory verses), Grant (number of lines for “business” part), Script (of the inscription), Comment, Persons00 (number of persons mentioned in “Persons01” field), Persons01 (list of persons – officials or titles mentioned as witnesses of the transaction), Persons02 (list of inhabitants of the granted villages or territories), Purport, Taxes00 (number of taxes granted to the donee), Taxes01 (list of taxes granted to the donee), Writer/Composer, Scribe, etc.; and for 2) “Publications”: Code (or Number), Name (name of inscription of the table “List”), Edition Name, Author’s Name, Year (of edition), Volume, Number (of the publication), and Pages.

At present the digital Annotated list of early mediaeval North Indian land grants is getting ready to be edited by Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands. There will be 15 fields reflected in published version of the Annotated list (Name, State, District, Century, Year, Dynasty, Ruler, Donor, Donation, Donee, Plates, Size, Lines, Commentary, and Script). Also there will be the above-mentioned 8 fields in the bibliographical part of the work.

 

 

Previous project

 

The early mediaeval (up to 13th c. A.D.) land grants of North India written in Sanskrit language and published for more than two centuries of Indian Studies in different journals, periodicals, compendiums and monographs are the main object of the work. The vast majority of them are inscribed in copper plates (CP). They are collected in a Database that consists of two main tables made in Microsoft Access format: 1) "List" and 2) "Bibliography". At the moment the table "List" consists of 1218 entries and the table "Bibliography" consists of 3140 entries. For comparison purposes the DB comprises also about 130 inscriptions on stone that mainly have information about land transactions (not more than 10 of them are the real land grants), about 60 CP grants of the later periods (14 - 19 ca) and about 20 CP grants belonging to Southern India (Deccan area). This means that actually the total number of Early Mediaeval North Indian Copper Plate Grants under research exceeds 1000.

There are 18 fields (or properties) for filling out the 1) "List" table of DB and 8 fields for filling out the 2) "Bibliography" table. There is also a digital collection of all published texts mainly with plates made as images both in Adobe Photoshop (psd) and Microsoft Office (tiff) formats connected with the main DB.

For the last time "A List of Inscriptions of Northern India written in Brahmi and its Derivative Scripts from about A.C. 200" compiled by Prof. D.R. Bhandarkar has been edited 70 years ago: in 1928-36 as a Suppl. to Epigraphia Indica Vols 19-23. It is proposed to edit the "Annotated Database of Early Mediaeval North Indian Copper Plate Grants" in two forms a) printed and b) digital, maybe with attachment the digital form (CD or better DVD) to the printed one.

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