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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA No. 3.-NANDGAON INSCRIPTION OF YADAVA KRISHNA : SAKA 1177 V. V. MIRASHI, AMRAOTI This inscription was first brought to notice in the second edition2 (published in 1931) of the late Rai Bahadur Hiralal’s Inscriptions in C. P. and Berar, p. 140, where a short description of its contents is given. It is edited here from a good estampage which I owe to the kindness of Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra. The inscription is incised on an outside wall of the temple3 of Khaṇḍēśvara on a hillock on the outskirts of Nāndgaon, a village about 20 miles north by east of Amraoti in the Amraoti District of Berar. The record covers a space 2′ 5″ broad and 9″ high and consists of six lines. The stoneon which it was incised was not originally made quite smooth and the technical execution also was not good. Besides, being exposed to the inclemency of weather for several centuries, the record has suffered considerably, especially in the last line. The reading of a few aksharas here and there is therefore not free from doubt. The language is a mixture of Sanskrit and Marāṭhī. The opening formula which mentions the date and the reigning king’s name is in Sanskrit,4but the subsequent portion which states the object of the record is in old Marāṭhī, as in several other inscriptions of the period.5 The orthography shown the substitution of the lingual sh for kh in lāshauli, a peculiarity which the present inscription shares with several other records of the Yādavas.6 Of lexicographical interest is the Marāṭhī word Vaḍavā. In the form Baḍavā, it denotes, in modern Marāṭhī, a ‘ temple=priest’, but in the age to which the present record belongs, it had the wider sense of a ‘ royal functionary.’7
The inscription refers itself to the ‘ victorious reign’ of the illustrious Prauḍhapratāpa Chakravartin Kānhiradēva. The title borne by the king indicates that he must have belonged to the Yādava dynasty of Dēvagiri. He can therefore be none other than Kṛishṇa, the grand- _____________________________________
[1] The epithet Hiraṇyagarbha-saṁbhūta occurs in the Mahākūṭa pillar inscription of Maṅgalēśa also (Ind. Ant.,
Vol. XIX, pp. 9ff.). It refers to the celebration of the great gift of Hiraṇyagarbha (golden womb), one of the sixteen
mahādānas enumerated in Hēmāḍri’s Dānakhaṇḍa, chapter 5, and the Matsyapurāṇa, chap. 249. While editing
the Maṭṭepāḍ plates of Dāmōdaravarman (above, Vol. XVII, p. 328), Hultzsch first suggested its correct meaning
as referring to a Mahādāna and not to the four-faced god Brahmā. See also D. C. Sircar’s Successors of the
Sātavāhanas, pp. 50ff. where relevant details from the Matsyapurāṇa are given. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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