South Asia (6th–10th c.)Religion

Devapala’s Nalanda charter for the monastery of Balaputra

Sometime between about 844 and 860 the Pala king Devapala, at the request of Balaputra, the Shailendra king of Suvarnadvipa (Sumatra), granted five villages to a monastery that Balaputra had built at Nalanda. The copper plate recording the grant is one of the chief witnesses to the ties between the Buddhist courts of Bengal and the Indonesian archipelago.

Date: between 844 and 860exact date unknown: an interval is given
Place: Nalandatoday: Nalanda, Bihar, India · South Asia
Participants: Devapala, Balaputra, Pala Empire, Shailendra dynasty, Srivijaya
Threads: South Asia (6th–10th c.)
Also known as: Nalanda copper plate; Nalanda inscription of Devapaladeva; Balaputradeva; Suvarnadvipa; Наландская медная грамота; Балапутрадева; Суварнадвипа

The copper plate was found in 1921 by Hirananda Shastri in the antechamber of Monastery 1 at Nalanda and published by him in 1924; it is now in the National Museum, New Delhi. It is dated on the 21st day of Karttika in Devapala’s 39th regnal year — R. C. Majumdar thought the figure should be read as 35 — and since the reigns of the Pala kings are dated only approximately, the year falls between about 844 and 860 (George Coedès: about 860). The charter says that the maharaja Balaputradeva of Suvarnadvipa, drawn by the excellences of Nalanda, had built there a monastery for the community of monks and through envoys asked Devapala to endow it; the king granted four villages in the district of Rajagriha and one in that of Gaya, whose income was to provide offerings to the Buddha, the needs of the monks of the four quarters, the copying of Buddhist texts and the repair of the monastery.

Its genealogy makes Balaputra the son of Samaragravira and of Tara, daughter of Dharmasetu of the lunar race, and the grandson of a king of Yavabhumi (Java) who was ‘the ornament of the Shailendra dynasty’ and bore the epithet ‘slayer of enemy heroes’. George Coedès tentatively identified Samaragravira with Samaratunga, the Shailendra king of Java in 824, and regarded Balaputra as the first Shailendra ruler of Srivijaya; following J. G. de Casparis, he thought that Balaputra had moved to Sumatra, his mother’s country, after losing a struggle for Central Java to Rakai Pikatan in 856 — a reconstruction that later scholars have questioned. Ties between Bengal and Java were older: in 782 a guru from Gauda had consecrated an image of Manjushri at Kelurak near Kalasan.

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Related events

Kumaragupta I and the founding of the Nalanda monasterybetween 415 and 455 · South AsiaNalanda, founded in the 5th century, attracted patrons from as far as Sumatra
Srivijaya’s first conquests and its Old Malay inscriptionsbetween 682 and 683 – 686 · Southeast Asia and OceaniaBalaputra ruled Srivijaya, the Sumatran kingdom whose earliest inscriptions date from the 680s
The Kalasan inscription: a temple of Tara under the Shailendras778 · Southeast Asia and OceaniaShailendra ties with Bengal go back to the 8th century: in 782 a guru from Gauda consecrated the Kelurak image near Kalasan
Dharmapala founds the monasteries of Somapura and Vikramashilabetween 770 and 821 · South AsiaDevapala continued the patronage of Buddhist monasteries begun by his father Dharmapala
Ennin’s pilgrimage to Tang China12 July 838 – 30 October 847 · East AsiaAt Mount Wutai in 840 Ennin was told that three monks from Nalanda had visited the year before
The Shivagrha inscription: the Shiva temple of Prambanan is consecrated12 November 856 · Southeast Asia and OceaniaJ. G. de Casparis linked Balaputra’s departure for Sumatra with the war mentioned in the Shivagrha inscription