Barrackpur Copper Plate
This copper plate document, 38.6 x 33 cm, was found near Barrackpur in Eastern India. Inscribed in Sanskrit, it is a land grant with a genealogy of the Sena dynasty, dated in the 32nd year of the reign of Vijaya Sena (probably from AD
1159. The royal seal of that dynasty, a ten-armed figure of the god Shiva, is attached to the top of the plaque. It records the grant of a piece of land to a brahmin named Udayakaradeva Sharman in return for performing a special Vedic
sacrifice during a lunar eclipse for Vijaya Sena’s principal queen, Mahadevi Vilasa Devi.
Dr. G.A. Schumacher bought the document for its weight in copper ca. 1905 in a small village near the cantonment of Barrackpur, 24-Parganas District, West Bengal. It was later donated to the British Museum by Captain Raymond John.
Sources:
N.G. Majumdar (ed.), Inscriptions of Bengal, vol. 3 (Rajshahi, Bengal, Varendra Research Society, 1929)
B.M. Morrison, Political centers and cultural (Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1970)