North Indian Inscriptions

KANCHI INSCRIPTION OF VIKRAMADITYA.

of Kâsîllî in the Śrâvastî maṇḍala (l. 38), a resident of Sîṅgôâgrâma in the Dêvîbhôga vishaya in Kôsala (ll. 38-39), belonging to the Kauśika gôtra, with the pravara of Viśvâmitra, Dêvarâta, and Audala, and a student of the Chhandôga śâkhâ.

......Lines 44 to 66 are occupied with the usual mandate to future kings to continue the grant and with benedictive and imprecatory verses.

......Lines 66 to 69 praise a minister of the king, named Siṅgadatta, holding the office of Saṁdhivigrahin,— and, in doing so, use the verse which in E. is applied in the case of Chhchchhaṭêsa.

......A verse in lines 69 and 70 tells us that the charter was written by the Kâyastha Maṅgaladatta.

......And lines 70 to the end give the date of the third tithi in the bright fortnight of the month Mârga or Mârgaśîrsha in the third year of the victorious reign of the most devout worshipper of (the god) Mahêśvara, the Paramabhaṭṭâraka, the Mahârâjâdhirâja, the Paramêśvara, the ornament of the Sômakula, the lord of the three Kaliṅgas, the glorious Bhîmarathadêva.

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No. 48.─ KANCHI INSCRIPTION OF VIKRAMADITYA.

BY E. HULTZSCH, PH. D.

......In editing the Kûram plates of the Pallava king Paramêśvaravarman I., I noticed a Kanarese inscription in the Kailâsanâtha temple at Conjeeveram, which proves that a king Vikramâditya, who is shown by his surnames to belong to the Western Chalukya dynasty, captured Kâñchî and visited the temple.¹ I now edit this record from excellent inked estampages. recently prepared by my Tamil Assistant, Mr. T. P. Krishnasvami Sastri, M.A.

......As stated in my former notice, the inscription is engraved on the back of a pillar of the maṇḍapa in front of the Râjasiṁhêśvara shrine, and nearly touches the east wall of another maṇḍapa which, at a later time, has been erected between the shrine and the front maṇḍapa. This circumstance makes it impossible to read the inscription from the stone and renders the preparation of good estampage a work of some difficulty. The alphabet of the inscription is Old-Kanarese ; and the language is Kanarese prose, with the exception of the concluding sentence, which is half Sanskṛit and half Kanarese.

......The inscription records that, after his conquest of Kañchi,² Vikramâditya-Satyâśraya did not confiscate the property of the Râjasiṁhêśvara temple, but returned it to the god. It ends with an imprecation, and with the names of the writer and of another official who superintended him.

......In the inscription of the Western Chalukyas of Bâdâmi, both Vikramâditya I. and Vikramâditya II. are stated to have taken Kâñchî,— the former from Îśvarapôtarâja, i.e. the Pallava king Paramêśvaravarman I.,³ and the latter from Nandipôtavarman. Though the subjoined inscription is not dated and might thus belong to the reign of either of the two Vikramâdityas, it may be assigned with great probability to Vikramâditya II., because the Wokkalêri plates explicitly state that the latter, after his conquest of Kâñchî, made gifts to the Râjasiṁhêśvara temple.⁴
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......¹ South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 147.
......² According to Mr. Kittel’s Dictionary, Kañchi is a Kanarese tadbhava of Kâñchî (Conjeevaram). It occurs also in a Kanarese inscription of Gôvinda III. ; Ind. Ant. Vol. XI. p. 127.
......³ See South-Indian Inscription, Vol. I. p. 145.
......⁴ ibid. p. 146.