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world, and especially the artificer of the shrine of Hind, that, in accordance with (the verse):

"The world-upholder, the world to hold, doth know, one place to uproot, and then another sow": he should make resting-places for the glorious Imperial cavalcade, by graciously building at every stage, and on every clod of soil, where the air of the place was temperate, its fields extensive, its water sweet, and its plains were level-and what choice was there! for cool spots, and pleasant dwellings, and fragrant resting-places, and sweet waters, with a view to preservation of the gift of bodily health, and with a view to the possibility of an evenlybalanced condition of the soul, all of which may possibly be conducive to the knowledge and service of God, are of the number of the six necessaries of existence, and especially at a time when some of the royal occupations, such as exercise and hunting, were therein involved-for these reasons, in the year of happy augury, after his return from his journey to Malwa, when the friends of the empire were victorious, and the enemies of the kingdom had been disappointed, before the eyes of a genius lofty in its aims, and the decision of a mind world-adorning it befell, that, when he had made a place called Ghrawali (which is one farsang distant from Agra, and in respect of the excellence of its water, and the pleasantness of its air, has over a host of places a superiority and a perfect excellence) the camping-place of his Imperial host, and the encampment of his ever-enduring prosperity, and when he had gained repose for his heaven-inspired mind from the annoyances incidental to city-life, he spent his felicity-marked moments, sometimes in caugān-playing, sometimes in racing Arabian dogs, and sometimes in flying birds of various kinds; and accepting the building of that city of deep foundations as an omen of the duration of the edifice of the palace of his undecaying Sultanate, and as a presage of the increase of his pomp and state, his all-penetrating firman was so gloriously executed that all who obtained the favour of being near to his restingplace, and were deemed worthy of the sight of his benvolence, one and all built for themselves in that happy place lofty dwellings and spacious habitations, and in a short time the plain of that pleasant valley under the ray of the favour of His Highness, the adumbration of the Divinity, became the mole in the cheek of the new bride of the world, and received the name of Nagarchin which is the Hindustani for the Persian Amnābād, security-abode:-Praise be to God, that picture, which the heart desired issued from the invisible behind the curtain of felicity.

It is one of the traditional wonders of the world that of that city and edifice not a trace now is left, so that its site is become a level

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plain." Well may the writer philosophize at the conclusion. then by this example ye who are men of insight!" as the author of the Qārūns has said: "Of seven or eight cities, called Mancurah or Mancūrīyyāh, built by a mighty king, or monarch of pomp in their time, at this time not one is inhabited. Will they not journey through the land, and observe what has been the end of those who were before them ?" "(From Mr. W. H. Lowe's translation vol. II, p. 68, edition of 1884.)

I have known Persian scholars besides Mr. Lowe to read the name as Nagarcain, that is, the town of the Cini or Chinese; but the more correct reading is Nagarcain, that is, the town or abode of rest. Another name by which as we see it was called was Amnābād, which means also the same thing, namely, a place of relaxation or the city of rest; but Akbar was no pedant, he did not affect high Persian and so the more Hindianized name was adopted. The ruins of the city lie in an extensive plain seven miles due south from Agra in the vicinity of the village of Kakrāli, within the boundaries of the village of Qabulpur, which is conterminous with Kakrāli. They consist of a place locally known as the Mahal Mandū; a plot measuring 2 biswās (9 p.) called Masjid, but there is no masjid there now; another plot of 2 biswas also called Masjid, the ruins of a masjid being extant; a hammām or bath covering 2 biswās; and a large well. All these edifices are in a state of perfect dilapidation. The whole tract is nazul or Government property; 6 bighas (a: 3. 1. 17.) of it is cultivated and is let for Rs. 23 a year, but nobody knows it as the site of an ancient city; the village records speak of it merely as Mahal Mandu.

The distance of Kakrālī from Agra Fort is seven miles, while both Abul Fazl and Badayuni describe Nagarcain as situated at a distance of only one farsang from the metropolis. And therefore it might perhaps be objected that the village which I identify as the site of my 'forgotten city' cannot be the Kalakrāli of Abul Fazl or the Ghrāwali of Badayuni. The explanation which I have to offer is not a far-fetched one. Now a farsang is equal to three geographical miles, The suburbs of Agra at that period extended as far as Kakūbā, which is a town situated some four or five miles from the Agra Fort, and so Nagarcain would be no farther than one farsang or three miles from the uttermost border of the capital.

The name is another difficulty but only an apparent one. Kakrāli is the present name of the village, and very probably it was so then also. But in the editions which I have seen, namely, Nawal-Kishor's, the name is written as Kalakrāli or Kalkarāli, in the Akbar-nāma, and as Kakrauli or Ghrawali, in Badāyūni.

All these wrong spellings are presumably due to clerical errors. Accepting that both these authors are speaking of the one identical town as Kalakarāli or Kalkarāli or as Kakrauli or Ghrāwali, it is by no means an unfair inference to draw that the present Kakrāli is really the place meant; for it is quite possible in the Persian character, if written loosely, to mistake the one for the other.

The Khurda Copper-Plate Grant of Madhava, King of Kalinga.-By GANGA MOHAN LASKAR, M.A.

(With Plate VI)

[Read January, 1904.]

This set of three copper-plates comes from Khurda in Orissa and forms the second record ever discovered of King Madhava and of the Sailodbhava dynasty from which he sprang; the only other known record of this dynasty is a copper-plate charter of the same king, Mādhava, found in the Buguḍa village of the Goomsur tāluk in the Ganjam District. Dr. Kielhorn has given an account of the Buguḍa plates in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. III., pp. 41-46.

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The new record consists of three plates strung together by a circular ring, the ends of which are secured in a seal. Each plate is 51" long, 25" broad and thick. The ring is 3 inches in diameter and inch in thickness. The seal is parabolic and contains, in relief, the figure of a bull and the words "Srih-Sainyabbitasya" (of the glorious Sainyabbīta). All the plates are inscribed, the middle one on both sides. The engraving is deep and legible.

I have completely deciphered this inscription. A small strip of metal has broken off from the right-hand margin of the middle plate ; but the loss of a few letters caused thereby can almost entirely be supplied from the context. By this charter Madhava grants lands in the village of Ārahaṇṇa or (Arahanṇa) in the Thoraṇa district or viṣaya to a Brahman named Prajapatis vāmin.

This grant like the previously published one is without date. The names of kings mentioned in these charters are not met with in any other record. So palæography is our only guide in fixing the date. The characters of the Khurda plates belong to the Kutila variety of Nagari, and are similar to those used in the Apshaḍ inscription of Adityasena. But the former show several more archaic forms, and have the vowel-marks and mātrās (horizontal top-strokes) less developed. Hence the new inscription seems to be a little older than the Apshad inscription. The Apshad inscription has been

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