North Indian Inscriptions

ALAMPUNDI PLATE OF VIRUPAKSHA.

victorious, who was resplendent with good fortune, who was relative (as dear as) life to (his) subjects, (and) who was an ocean of good deeds, provided the sacred shrine (vimâna) of (the goddess) Kâmâkshî at Kâñchî with a copper-door.

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No. 33.─ A STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE SINDA FAMILY
AT BHAIRANMATTI.

BY J. F. FLEET, I.C.S., PH.D., C.I.E.

......Bhairanmaṭṭi¹ is a village ten miles east of Bâgalkôṭ, the chief town of the Bâgalkôṭ tâlukâ in the Bijâpur district, Bombay Presidency. The inscription is on a stone tablet, 7’ 11½” high, which stands near a modern and insignificant shrine of the god Hanumanta, outside the village and towards the south.

......The writing covers a space of about 2’ 0½” broad by 5’ 6” high near the top of the tablet, and, except towards the end, is in an excellent state of preservation.— The sculptures above it, at the top of the tablet, are— in the centre, a liṅga ; on the proper right, a seated figure, and a cobra standing on the tip of its tail, and, above them, a cobra coiled in a spiral, and the sun ; and on the proper left, the bull Nandi, and, above it, a cow and calf, a crooked sword or dagger, and the moon,— The characters are Old-Kanarese ; and, as may be seen from the photograph of this record, from an estampage, published in my Pâli, Sanskrit, and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. 86, they furnish a fine specimen of rather ornate writing of the eleventh century A.D. The average size of the letters ranges from ½” to ⅝”.— The language is Old-Kanarese. There are two invocatory verses in the first two lines, and an imprecatory verse in line 56-57 ; and the record itself is in verse from line 10 to line 29.— In respect of orthography, the following points may be noticed : (1) the vowel ṛi is represented by ri almost throughout ; (2) the visarga has become sh, by saṁdhi, in sirash-karaṁṇḍan, line 27-28, and âṁtashkarana, line 32 ; (3) bh is wrongly doubled, after r, by bh, instead of by b, in garabhbhaṁ, line 11 ; and (4) there is much confusion between the sibilants,— s in constantly used for ś ; ś occurs for sh in viśay-âdhirâja, l. 35 ; and sh occurs for ś in shaṁbhavê, line 1, and in two other words in lines 8, 13.

......The inscription is a record of a branch of the feudatory Sinda family, the members of which are called in it the Sindas of Bâgaḍage, i.e. of Bâgalkôṭ ;² evidently, just before the time of the Sinda Mahâmadṇḍalêśvaras of Erambarage, i.e. Yelburga, some of whose records have already been published,³ they held the subordinate government of much the same tract of country. The inscription was plainly written all at one and the same time. But it divides itself naturally into two parts.

......As regards historical names, the first part, lines 1 to 50, tells us that in the time of the Western Châlukya king Taila II.,⁴ and in the Vikṛita saṁvastara, = A.D. 990-91, coupled with
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......¹ Indian Atlas, Sheet No. 58,─ ‘Byrunmuttee.’
......² For this identification, see Ep. Ind. Vol. II. p. 170.
......³ Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. XI. p. 219 ff.
......⁴ I take this opportunity of publishing a revised table of the Western Châlukya dynasty of Kalyâṇapura, i.e. of the modern Kalyâṇi in the Nizâm’s Dominions. The numerals prefixed to some of the names indicate the members of the family who actually reigned, and the order in which they succeeded each other.