A. THE ENGRAVER The care with which the charter is engraved shows that it is the work of a royal scribe. The Sanskrit part of the grant gives the name of the engraver as Ulakalanta-chola Acaryan. The inscription of the seal is also in grantha characters and is preserved in excellent condition. The engraving on the plates is uniformly good except at a few places. The Karandai plates of Rajendra was engraved by different persons whose names are given as Tribhuvanamadevi Peracarya and Rajendrasimha Peracarya. The Tiruvalangadu plates were engraved by four acarya-s,three of whom were also the engravers of Larger Leiden grant of Rajendra.Two amongst them were the engravers of Karandai plate. The engraver of the Esalam plate is different whose name was Ulagalanta Acari. The name Vasudeva occurs at the end of the Sanskrit part of the Esalam plate. A certain Vasudevan, son of Krishnan, is known among the family of engravers (K.G.K.P. 54) but he had the title Rajaraja peracaryan who was one of the engravers of Leiden plates. It is difficult to say whether the engraver of Esalam plates is identical with or related to Vasudevan of Leiden grant. Sri Krishnan holds that the word kastakari ascribed to the engravers in the Karandai plates indicates that they were carpenters by profession. "Kashtakari" is a Sanskrit coinage of the word "taksaka" tacca) which actually means silpin-s and no carpenters. Several inscriptions use this term "kashtakari",in the sense of sthapathi-s, silpin-s, architects. Krishnan's view needs to be revised. Silpin-s of great accomplishment were in the employ of the kings to engrave their royal charters.