The Three Records of the Bilhara Grant
The Bilhara village history committee in Rajasthan has three records for a proposed museum panel. (1) A copper plate, 18 lines in Sanskrit, said to have been found in 1968 while digging a tank. It records that a Chaulukya king granted 40 ploughs of land in Bilhara to a Brahmin, Vishnu, in the seventh year of his reign. The plate has no seal, its edges are filed smooth, and two holes carry old cord. (2) A temple wall inscription of nine lines, dated to the twelfth year of the same king, records a grant of 25 ploughs in Bilhara to a different Brahmin and names a local mahattara as witness. (3) A 1904 district gazetteer states that the grant was made by a different king around 1150 CE and that Bilhara was later abandoned. The committee must label one record as primary, explain the land-size conflict and decide whether to display the plate as genuine.
1. Which record should the committee treat as primary evidence, and what cautions must accompany that choice?
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The two inscriptions, not the gazetteer, are primary evidence because they are broadly contemporary with the events they describe. The gazetteer is a later interpretation and may have compressed oral tradition, survey data and colonial assumptions. But 'primary' does not mean 'automatically true'. The copper plate is unsealed, its edges are filed and its find-spot is poorly documented, so its authenticity must be tested before it is used as proof. The temple inscription is also primary, but it may record a different transaction rather than contradict the plate. The committee should therefore treat both inscriptions as independent primary records, compare their formulae, scripts and witnesses, and use the gazetteer only as a later source of clues. It should say 'primary, authenticity under review', not 'primary, therefore genuine'.
2. How should the committee explain the difference between 40 ploughs and 25 ploughs rather than treating it as a simple contradiction?
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The committee should first ask whether 'plough' is a fixed area. In early medieval grants it often works as a fiscal or productive unit, not a survey measure, so 40 ploughs in one village need not equal 40 modern acres. The two records are dated to regnal years 7 and 12, name different donees and may describe separate transactions, a confirmation, or a sub-grant. Boundary terms, village names and witness lists should be compared before assuming conflict. The committee should not average the figures or pick the 'larger' grant as more impressive. It should display the figures as recorded, explain the unit problem, and invite comparison with any later revenue records or related grants. The discrepancy is evidence about record-keeping, not automatically evidence of forgery.
3. What features would justify displaying the copper plate as 'authenticity unresolved' rather than 'forgery' or 'genuine'?
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'Authenticity unresolved' is justified when the object has both plausible and suspicious features. Plausible: twelfth-century script, a standard grant formula, old cord holes, and a find-spot that can still be investigated. Suspicious: no seal, filed edges, no recorded discovery context, and a formulary that may mix periods. A forgery judgement would require positive evidence, such as anachronistic titles, copied wording from a known plate, modern tool marks, or inconsistent metal composition. A 'genuine' judgement would require secure provenance, comparative paleography and non-destructive metal analysis. The committee should also check whether the plate was ever reissued or copied, since a later copy can be authentic as a copy without being the original. Until those tests are done, the honest label is unresolved, with the reasons listed for visitors.