North Indian Inscriptions

SINDA INSCRIPTION AT BHAIRANMATTI.

Śaka-Saṁvat 911 by mistake for 912 (expired),¹ there was a Sinda prince named Pulikâla,² son of Kammara or Kammayyarasa and Sagarabbarasi ; to Pulikâla and Rêvakabbe there was born the Mahâsâmanta Nâgâditya, Nâgâtya, or Nâgâtiyarasa ; to Nâgâditya and Poleyabbarasi there was born Polasinda ; and to Polasinda and Bijjaladêvî, daughter of the Khâṇḍava Maṇḍalêśvara,³ there was born the Mahaṇḍalêśvara Sêvyarasa. This latter person is mentioned as a vassal of the Western Châlukya king Sômêśvara II. And this fixes the period A.D. 1069 to 1076 as the time when the inscription was put on the stone. But the antique expression râjyaṁ-geyye, in line 4, shews that the opening part of it was taken from some record which had been drawn up more or less synchronously with the date that is given in connection with Taila II. and Pulikâla. This part of the record registers the fact that in some unspecified year, on a Sunday combining the uttarâyaṇa-saṁkrânti or winter solstice with the Vyatîpâta yôga, the Mahâsâmanta Nâgâditya had granted to a priest named Paratraya-Simharâśibhaṭṭa a field, measuring one thousand mattars by the measuring-rod of Pattiya-Mattaüra,⁴ at the village of Kiṛiya-Siriüra,⁵ and that the aruvaṇa, or tax in the field was twelve gadyâṇas.

......The second part of the inscription, from line 50 to the end, registers a grant, at a village named Puradakêri,⁶ which the same Mahâsâmanta Nâgâditya had made to a priest named Têjôrâśipaṇḍita in the time of the Western Châlukya king Jayasiṁha II., when the latter was reigning at Koḷḷipâke, in the Śrîmukha saṁvastara, Śaka-Saṁvat 955 (expired), = A.D. 1033-34 ;⁷ and it adds that this priest, who was the Âchârya of the god Sindêśvara, effected some repairs to the temple of that god.

......A special point of interest in this records is the legendary account as to the origin of the Sinda family, and of its name. These Sindas claimed to belong to the Nâgavaṁśa or race of hooded serpents,─ to carry the nâga-dhvaja or phaṇi-patâkâ, i.e. the banner which line 41 of the text explains as bearing representations of the Nâga kings Ananta, Vâsugi (more propely Vâsuki), and Takshaka,─ to use the vyâghra-lâñchhana or tiger-crest,─ and to have the hereditary title of “lord of Bhôgâvati, the best of towns,” which place, in Hindû mythology, was the capital of the Nâga king Vâsuki in Rasâtala, one of the seven divisions of Pâtâla or the subterranean regions. And, by way of accounting for all these attributes, and for the family-name, the record tells us that the eponymous founder of the family was a certain “long-armed” Sinda, a human son of the serpent-king Dharaṇêndra, born at Achichchhatra in the region of the river Sindhu, i.e. the Indus, and reared by a tiger. This Sinda is said to have married the daughter of a Kaḍamba prince,⁸ and to have had by her three sons, who established the family of the kings of the Sinda race. They appear to have been the first of a line of thirty-one successive rulers. And after them, at unspecified intervals, there came another prince named Sinda, and then Kammara or Kammayyarasa, the father of Pulikâla.

......The eponymous “long-armed Sinda” figures in records of also another branch of the Sindas family ; for instance, in an inscription of about A.D. 1165 at Harihar (Pâli, Sanskṛit, and Old-
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......¹ By the mean-sign system of the cycle, the Vikṛita or Vikṛiti saṁvastara began on the 18th April, A.D. 988, in Śaka-Saṁvat 911 current, and ended on the 14th April, A. D. 989, in Śaka-Saṁvat 912 current ( = 911 expired). But that system had then gone out of use in the part of the country to which this record belongs, and had been superseded by the southern luni-solar system, according to which the saṁvatsara in question coincided with Śaka-Saṁvat 913 current ( = 912 expired).— Further details of the date,— the month, etc.— are not given.
......² This name seems to represent the Kanarese huli, ‘tiger,’ and kâlu, ‘foot or leg.’
......³ This seems to be a family or territorial designation, rather than a personal name. And, in fact, the dictionaries give the word khâṇḍava as the name of a region.
......⁴ This must be the modern Hattî-Mattûr in the Karajgî tâlukâ, Dhârwâr district.
......⁵ This must have been a village, now non-existent, somewhere in the neighbourhood of bhairanmaṭṭi,— possibly a hamlet of, or offshoot from, the modern Śirûr, which is about seven miles to the south-west.
......⁶ The maps do not shew any village of this name anywhere in the neighbourhood of Bhairanmaṭṭi.
......⁷ In this date, again, no further details are given.
......⁸ The passage gives one of the few instances of the word kadamba being written with the lingual d.