North Indian Inscriptions

BHADANA GRANT OF APARAJITA.

really is in a state of excellent preservation. The plates are held together by a circular ring, about ¼” thick and 2¼” in diameter, which had not been cut when this record came into Dr. Fleet’s hands. The ends of the ring are socketed in a seal, of which the surface is circular, about 2⅛” in diameter. This seal has, in high relief on a countersunk surface, a representation of Garuḍa, with the body of a man and the face of a bird, squatting full-front, with the hands clasped on the breast. The weight of the three plates is 224 tolas, and of the ring and seal, 32½ tolas ; total, 256½ tolas.— The engraving is bold and good. The plates being substantial, the letters, though fairly deep, do not shew through on the reverse sides at all ; the interiors of some of them shew marks of the working of the engraver’s tool.— The size of the letters is about 5/16”. The characters are Nâgarî, and the language is Sanskṛit. Up to nearly the end of line 39 the inscription, after the introductory ôṁ ôṁ namô Vinâyakâya, has 24 verses, chiefly containing genealogical mater. The rest, being the formal part of the grant, is in prose, but includes, in lines 49-50 and 74-82, a well-known verse on the vanity of this life and seven of the ordinary benedictive and imprecatory verses. As may be seen from the occasional omission of single aksharas and groups of aksharas (e.g. in lines 38 and 54) and from the frequent occurrence of wrong letters, the writer has done his work in a rather slovenly manner. As regards orthography, the letter b is throughout denoted by the sign for v ; the dental sibilant is frequently used for the palatal, and the palatal three times for the dental (in âśîd, l. 3, śakala, l. 37, and śamvatsara, l. 54) ; and the dental nasal is employed instead of the guttural in the words anka, ll. 5, 32, 54 and 89, and Kokaṇa, l. 56, and instead of the palatal in kânchanaṁ, l. 78. In respect of the language, it may be noted that the text in line 45 offers two birudas, Malagalagaṇḍa, ‘a conqueror of mountains (?),’ and Nannisamudra, ‘a sea of truth,’ which are not Sanskṛit, and that it also contains some proper names with Kanarese endings, in lines 64 and 85-86. The word drama, abbreviated to dra, which occurs in lines 88-89, is often met with in cognate inscriptions.

......The inscriptions is one of the Śîlâra¹ Mahâmaṇḍalêśvara Aparâjitadêva. It clearly divides itself into two parts. The first part, up to line 39, gives the genealogy of Aparâjita himself and of the Raṭṭa (or Râshṭrakûṭa) kings, to whom the earlier Śîlâra chiefs owed allegiance ;² and the second part records the grant of the village of Bhâdâna, made by Aparâjita in Śaka-Saṁvat 919 in favour of (the temple of) the god (Sûrya under the name) Lôṇâditya, at Lavaṇêtaṭa.

......Opening with the words ‘ôṁ, ôṁ, adoration to Vinâyaka,’ the inscription first has two verses (one of whih is well known to us from Râshṭrakûṭa inscriptions) invoking the protection of the gods Vishṇu, Śiva, and Brahman. It then gives, in verses 3-12, the following complete list of the seventeen Râshṭrakûṭa kings from Gôvinda I. to Kakkala :³— 1, Gôvindarâja ; 2, Karkarâja ; 3, Indrarâja ; 4, his son Dantivarman ; 5, Karkarâja’s son Kṛishṇarâja ; 6, Gôvindarâja ; 7, his younger brother Dhruva ; 8, his son Jagattuṅga ; 9, Durlabha Amôghavarsha ; 10, his son Kṛishṇarâja ; 11, Jagattuṅga’s son Indradêva Nityaṁvarsha ;⁴ 12, his son Amôghavarsha, who is said to have ruled for one year ; 13, his younger brother
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......¹ On the three branches of eth Sîlâra or Silâra or Silâhâra family see Dr. Bhagvanlal Indraji in Journ. Bo. As. Soc. Vol. XIII. pp. 10-17. On the particular branch of the family to which Aparâjita belonged, which ruled over the Northern Koṅkaṇ, compare the Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XIII. p. 422 ff., and the inscriptions in the Asiatic Reasearches, Vol. I. p. 357 ff., and Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 276 ff., Vol. IX. p. 33 ff. ; and Vol. XIII. p. 133 ff.
......² The inscription in this respect is like the Khârêpâṭaṇ copper-plate inscription of the Silâra Maṇḍalika Baṭṭarâja of Śaka-Saṁvat 930.
......³ Compare Dr. Fleet’s Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, p. 31 ff. ; Dr. Bhandarkar’s Early History of the Dekkan, p. 47 ff. ; and especially Dr. Bhandarkar in the Journ. Bo. As. Soc. Vol. XVIII. p. 240 ff.
......⁴ So the name is written both in line 7 and in line 11. The Jagattuṅga, of whom Indradêva Nityaṁvarsha and Vaddigadêva (No. 14) were sons, was a son of Kṛishṇarâja (No. 10) ; he did not rule himself. In the Khârêpâṭaṇ plates also Indrarâja is mentioned immediately after Akâlavarsha (our Kṛishṇarâja, No. 10), and is described as his grandson (naptâ).