Description

Edilpur Copperplate was found in a char land dug of Edilpur

Idilpur Union

Idilpur is a union of Gosairhat Upazila under Shariatpur District in the Dhaka Division, southern-central Bangladesh beside the Jayanti River. In the past Idilpur or Idalpur or Edilpur pargana was the largest zamindari of Faridpur District and before that it was one of the 5 important parganas of...

 zamindari under Faridpur District

Faridpur District

Faridpur is a district in central Bangladesh. It is a part of the Dhaka Division. Faridpur District has a population of over 1.7 million people and is situated on the banks of the Padma river . It is bordered by Madaripur, Narail, Rajbari, Magura, Shariatpur, Gopalgonj, Dhaka and Manikganj...

 of Bangladesh about 120 miles directly east of Calcutta

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

. Baboo Conoylal Tagore of Tagore zamindar

Zamindar

A Zamindar or zemindar , was an aristocrat, typically hereditary, who held enormous tracts of land and ruled over and taxed the bhikaaris who lived on batavaslam. Over time, they took princely and royal titles such as Maharaja , Raja , Nawab , and Mirza , Chowdhury , among others...

i has presented the plate to Asiatic Society of Bengal in A.D. 1838, but now it is missing from collection. The plate is made of copper and was sharp in the letters, that the plate could have been long burred in the place where it was found. There was a seal, which is an elaborately executed figure of Siva

Shiva

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

 in copper cast. The character of this inscription is rather less simple than the earlier alphabets of Pala dynasty. It is strictly the Gaur character which has descended the modern written Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

. It is much to be regretted that when the first a font of Bengali type was prepared, the letters were made after the model of the running hand or written instead of this which may be called the print hand.

History

In Bengal and India Copper plate inscriptions (tamarashasana), usually record grants of land or lists of royal lineages carrying the royal seal, a profusion of which have been found . These inscriptions were legal documents such as title-deeds they were etched on a cave or temple wall, were then secreted in a safe place such as within the walls or foundation of a temple, or hidden in stone caches in fields. The earliest authenticated plates were issued by the Pallava

Pallava

The Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...

 dynasty kings in the 4th century A.D. The use of copper plate inscriptions increased and for several centuries they remained the primary source of legal records. This is the first copperplate record of a grant by the Sena Dynasty

Sena dynasty

The Sena Empire was a Hindu dynasty that ruled from Bengal through the 11th and 12th centuries. At its peak the empire covered much of the north-eastern region in the Indian Subcontinent. They were called Brahma-Kshatriyas, as evidenced through their surname, which is derived from the Sanskrit,...

.

Importance of Edilpur Copperplate

Edilpur copperplate inscriptions play an important role in the reconstruction of the history of Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

. An account of the plate was published in the Dacca Review and Epigraphic Indica. The copperplate inscription written Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 and in Ganda

Ganda

Ganda may refer to:* Ganda, Tibet, China* Ganda people of Uganda** Ganda language* Ganda Sirait, one of the big ethnic groups in Indonesia* Ganda, Angola* Ganda, the ancient Latin name of Ghent, a city in BelgiumPeople with the given name Ganda:...

 character dated 3rd jyaistha

Joishtho

Joishtho is the second month of the Bangla Calendar....

 of 1136 samval which represents 1079 A.D. The Asiatic Society’s proceeding for January 1838, an account of the Edilpur plate describes that 3 villages were given to a Brahman

Brahman

In Hinduism, Brahman is the one supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead which is the Divine Ground of all being...

 named Iswara Deva Sarma, of the Vatsa tribe, of the villages of Bagule Bettogata and Udyamuna situated between four equally unknown places in Banga, or Bengal in the 3rd year of Kaesava Sana

Keshab Sen

Keshab Sen was the sixth and last ruler from the Sena dynasty.-References:...

. The grant was given with the landlord rights, receives the power of punishing the chandrabhandas or sundarbans, a race that lived in the forest. It records the grant of the land in the village of Leliya in the Kumaratalaka mandala situated in shatata-padamavati-visaya. The copperplate of Kaesava Sana

Keshab Sen

Keshab Sen was the sixth and last ruler from the Sena dynasty.-References:...

 tells that the king Vallal Sena

Ballal Sena

Ballal Sen was the second ruler of the Sen dynasty of Bengal. Son and successor of Vijay Sen, Ballal Sen is known from the extant Kuljigranthas to have introduced social reforms in Bengal, especially the system of Kulinism.-See also:* Prithvi Raj Chauhan* List of rulers of Bengal* History of...

 carried away the goddesses of fortune for the enemies on palanquins (Shivaka

Ashvamedha

The Ashvamedha was one of the most important royal rituals of Vedic religion, described in detail in the Yajurveda...

) supported by staff made of elephant tusk. It also claims that his father Lakhman Sena (1179–1205) erects pillars of victory and sacrificial posts at Benaras and Allahbad and Adon Coast of South Sea. The plate describes the villages with smooth fields growing excellent paddy also noticed about the dancing and music in the ancient Bengal and ladies of that period used to adorn their bodies with blooming flowers. The Edilpur copperplate of Kaesava Sena records that the king made a grant in favor of Nitipathaka Isvaradeva Sarman for the inscae of the subha-varsha.