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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA 10 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA [ VOL. XXVII son of Siṅghaṇa, who succeeded the latter in A. D. 1247 and ruled up to A. D. 1260. Kānhira is evidently a Prakrit form of the Sanskrit name Kṛishṇa. Other forms of the same name occurring in inscriptions of contemporary literature of the Mahānubhāvas are Kānhara, Kānha, Kanhāra and Kandhāra.[1] The present inscription is dated in the year 1177 of the Śaka era, the cyclic year being Ānanda. As no further details such as month, fortnight, tithi, week-day or nakshatra are given, the date does not admit of verification, but it may be noted that the cyclic year Ānanda corresponded to Śaka 1177, current. Dates of epigraphic records are generally given in expired Śaka years, the cyclic year quoted with them being of course current. The date of the present record is noteworthy as it cites a current Śaka year. The corresponding year of the Christian era was A. D. 1254-55. This is the only record of Kṛishṇa’s reign found so far in Berar. Another record of the same king’s reign has been discovered at Mārkaṇḍi in the Chāndā District of the Central Provinces,[2] but it is not dated. Even before Kṛishṇa’s reign, Berar was occupied by the Yādavas, for an inscription discovered at Amrāpur in the Bulḍānā District, bearing the date Śaka 1133, belongs to the reign of Kṛishṇa’s grandfather Siṅghaṇa,[3] and Khōlēśvara, Siṅghaṇa’s General, records, in his Ambā inscriptions, several religious and charitable works which he constructed in Berar.[4] From the Purshōttampurī plates recently published in this journal,[5] we learn that Kṛishṇa terrified the king of Kōsala, i. e., Dakshiṇa-Kōsala or modern Chhattīsgarh. It is not therefore surprising that records of his reign should be found as far east as the Amraoti District in Berar and the Chāndā District in C. P. It may be noted in this connection that according to theLīḷācharitra, an old Marāṭhī biography of Chakradhara, the founder of the Mahānubhāva sect, Kṛishṇa had gone as far as Loṇār in the Bulḍānā District of Berar to meet Chakradhara in theŚaka year 1178, i. e., only two years after the date of the present record.[6]
The object of the present inscription is to record the donations of a gadyāṇa[7] each by some persons for the (perpetual) offerings of flowers evidently at the temple of Khaṇḍēśvara. The inscription names ten persons, the first nine of whom provided for the offering of one lākhaulī[8] or a lakh of flowers and the tenth, for two lākhaulīs. The gadyāṇa or gadiyāṇa was a coin of gold. The Khārepāṭan plates[9] dated Śaka 930 mention the customs duty of one suvarṇa-gadiyāṇa (gold gadyāṇa) levied on every sea-going vessel coming from foreign lands which the Śilāhāra king Raṭṭarāja assigned to some Śaiva ascetics. Kittel found at Bellary and occasionally in Mysore small gold cons called gadyāṇas of the weight of ruvvi or a farthing.[10] The custom of making provision for the perpetual offerings of flowers at temples is also known from some other records of that age. A stone inscription at Paṇḍharpur, popularly known as the inscription of Chauryāsi,[11] which belongs to the reign of the Yādava king _____________________________________
[1]Bom. Gaz., Vol. I, pt. ii, p. 526 ; Līḷācharitra, ed. by Mr. H. N. Nene, Vol. II, pt. i, p. 46. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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