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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA Inscription No. 1 consists of seven lines of writing and occupies a space of about 1½ feet in length and 10 inches in breadth. There are only five lines of writing in Inscription No. 2, of which lines 1-4 are about 1⅔ feet long while line 5 is nearly 2 feet in length. This inscription covers a space about seven inches wide. Inscription No. 3, consisting of eight lines of writing, occupies a space about 1⅓ feet in length and 10¼ inches in breadth. Line 7 of this epigraph is smaller than lines 1-6, while line 8 is even smaller than line 7. Inscription No. 4, which consists of ten lines of writing, covers a space about 1⅔ feet long and 1¼ feet wide. The records are written in the Gauḍīya characters of about the thirteenth century A.D. Their language is old Oriya with a slight admixture of Sanskrit. They have to be counted amongst the earliest Oriya inscriptions so far discovered. In regard to palæography and orthography, the inscriptions resemble some other Orissan records of about the same period.[1] As usual with the medieval inscriptions of Orissa, some of the numerical figures are of the early Bengali type while others are of the Telugu-Kannaḍa type. But the figure for 3 has been written in two different ways in Inscription No. 1, line 7, and Inscription No. 4, line 3. In the former case, it resembles the Telugu-Kannaḍa form of the figure. The use of the pronominal adjective i, the locative suffixes i and eṁ and the dative suffix kai, side by side with ku, is of grammatical interest. It seems that kai and ku have been used in two distinct senses, the former to indicate ‘ for ’ and the latter ‘ to ’. All the four records bear dates in the Śaka era and in the years of the well-known Aṅka system of regnal reckoning prevalent in Orissa. No. 1 is dated in Śaka 1147 (1225 A.D.), the others (Nos. 2-4) bearing dates in Śaka 1158 (1237 A.D.).
Inscription No. 1 records the grant of three Vāṭis of land in a locality called Kshagōpaḍā or Chhagōpaḍā by the Śrīkaraṇa (officer of the record department or member of the writer class) Suru-sēnāpatī (literally, ‘ the general named Suru ’) on Thursday, Āshāḍha-sudi 5, in Śaka 1147 and in the Aṅka year 15 (or the 13th regnal year) of the reign of Anaṅkabhīmadēva (i.e. Gaṅga Anaṅgabhīma III). General Suru, donor of the grant, is also known from two Srikurmam Records[2] of Śaka 1137 (1215 A.D.) and 1163 (1241 A.D.). It is well known that the royal name is found in various forms such as Anaṅka, Aniyaṅka, Anaṅga, etc., although the form found in the present record (No. 1) is also noticed in the other three inscriptions under discussion. Aniyaṅka seems to be derived from a combination of Telugu ani (cf. Kannaḍa aṇi, Tamil aṇiyam) ‘ battle ’, and Sanskrit aṅka, ‘ mark ’, etc., and to be Sanskritized into Anaṅga through the intermediate form Anaṅka.[3] One Vāṭi, which is equal to twenty Māṇas, is now regarded as equivalent to twenty acres of land. The date of the inscription corresponds regularly to Thursday, June 26, 1225 A.D. The grant was made in favour of the god Purushōttama (Jagannātha), for making provision for the offering (naivēdya) of milk, clarified butter, rice and curds to the deity, with the cognizance (gōcharē) of Mahādēva Pāṭhin. The exact relation of Mahādēva Pāṭhin with the gift or gift land cannot be determined. We do not know whether he was a royal officer in charge of transactions involving deeds of gift, or a witness of such a transaction, or the original title-holder of the gift land from whom the donor may have purchased it. It is stated that the grant was made with clarified butter, curry (vyañjana), curds and betel-leaf. The real significance of the statement is uncertain although a similar one is found in all the four inscriptions. But it is ____________________________________________
[1] In some cases, the superscript ṅ has been so written in the inscriptions as to look like the anusvāra as in
certain modern Oriya conjuncts.
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