your bridge home
True Valor
Her husband is dead, her sons are children, and the land grants going out on copper carry her name and her father's lineage.
The plates are copper, and the writing on them is a legal instrument. A grant of land, from a ruler to a recipient, in perpetuity, which is why it is on metal instead of palm leaf. It is meant to still be readable when everyone involved is dead.
The ones from the Vakataka court, around the year 400, are issued in the name of a woman.
And she signs them with the wrong family.
Prabhavatigupta was the daughter of the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II and his queen Kuberanaga. She was married to Rudrasena II of the Vakatakas, who ruled the Deccan. In the lifetime of his father, Prithivishena I.
It was a straightforward dynastic marriage. Joining the two great powers of the subcontinent.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.