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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA No. 2.─ BADAMI INSCRIPTION OF CHALIKYA VALLABHESVARA : SAKA 465 (1 Plate) R. S. PANCHAMUKHI, DHARWAR The inscription edited below is engraved in an inaccessible part of a big cliff about 250 feet high, in the northern fort at the back of the Battērappa temple at Bādāmi in the Bijāpur District. The spot where the inscription is found is not approachable either from the bottom or from the top, being situated approximately 120 feet high from the bottom of the cliff. The hill-rock appears to have been cut through, east to west, forming a narrow path-way and the eastern outlet towards Taṭṭukōṭe and other gorges are closed by artificial brick walls rendering the fort impenetrable to the enemies. The record is incised on the northern face of this rock. During my visit to Bādāmi in the last week of February, 1941, I discovered this inscription but no estampage of it could be taken then, on account of the difficulty of approach and for want of suitable assistance to devise means to reach the spot. I had to return disappointed, but in June 1941 I gathered assistance from the local bee-scarers who are expert sealers of hill-rocks for collecting honey, and managed to have a beautiful estampage of the epigraph taken by a mechanic of my office. In the meanwhile, however, the discovery of the inscription had been announced in a press communiqué about the middle of June, 1941, by the Director General of Archæology in India, New Delhi, who had been furnished with a photograph of the same by the Superintendent, Archæological Survey, Western Circle, Poona. On an enquiry, the late Rao Bahadur K. N. Dikshit, the Director General of Archæology, informed me that “ Mr. Joglekar who was deputed to photograph some conservation work, also took a photograph of the inscription, the existence of which he knew from the Public Works Department Karkun, Mr. M. S. Sankannavar. There is, _____________________________________
[1]The inscribed fragment is now in the house of Sri Vemuri Venkayya. ex-President of the local Panchāyat
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