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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
KOLHAPUR INSCRIPTION OF SILAHARA BHOJA II ; MORESHWAR G. DIKSHIT, SAUGAR This inscription, now preserved in the wall of the Hari-Harēśvara shrine in the compound of the famous Mahālakshmī temple at Kolhāpur, was first noticed by me in December 1945, when I visited the place for the excavations on the Brahmapuri mound, near Kolhāpur. The stone bearing this inscription is reported to have been found while digging the foundation wall of Mr. Panditrao’s house in close vicinity of the temple several years ago and later built into the outer wall of the above-named shrine for the sake of preserving it. I edited the inscription some years back in Marāṭhī in my book[2] Select Inscriptions from Mahārāshṭra, pp. 73-80. I re-edit it here in English for the sake of a wider circle of scholars. The text of the record presented here is based on the inked estampage[3] which I owe to the courtesy of the Government Epigraphist for India, Ootacamund. Shri N. Lakshminarayan Rao, Superintendent for Epigraphy, has been kind enough to make several useful suggestions in preparing the article. The inscribed area of the stone slab is about 4¼ feet in length and 2½ feet broad. At its top, figures of the sun, the moon, a maṅgala kalaśa, a milking cow with a calf, and a sword are carved in high relief and are now worshipped daily by the visitors to the shrine. There are 39 lines of writing which is fairly well preserved. Some parts of the record, however, are damaged and worm out, probably on account of the constant watering of the stone resorted to by its worshippers. A few letters at the ends of lines have also been damaged while fixing the slab in its present position. The language of the inscription is Sanskrit, of which lines 1-17 and 34-39 are in verse. The rest is in prose as also the concluding sentence in lines 39. The characters are the usual type of the Nāgarī alphabet current in the 12th century A.C. and do not call for any remarks. As regards orthography, the following deserve mention. Ksha is used for khya in line 5. Ś is substituted for s occasionally ; e.g., āśīt in line 2, yaśyā in line 6, etc. The word Nairṛitya is spelt as Naiyiritya in line 23. The rules of sandhi are often disregarded. The style of the inscription is in general agreement with another inscription from Kolhāpur published in this journal previously.[4] The inscription is date Śaka 1104, Śubhakṛit-saṁvatsara, Pushya śuddha 4, Uttarāyaṇa-saṁkrānti. The date which is expressed in words only in lines 20-21 corresponds regularly to 1st December 1182 A.C.[5] The inscription refers itself to the reign of Bhōja II, the Śilāhāra ruler of Kolhāpur, who is stated to have obtained a boon from the goddess Mahālakshmī and is style Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara. It was issued from his residence at Valavāḍa. The object of it is to record several donations by _________________________________________________
[1] Read vilōpyāḥ || [21*] iti. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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