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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA Bengali resembling the modern Bengali alphabet very closely. This script may also be called Gauḍī,[1] although this name may more properly be applied to an earlier stage of the characters on the way of their development. The four lines of writing in the inscription cover a space about 27·5 inches by 3·5 inches. The preservation of the writing is not satisfactory. The usual symbol expected at the beginning of the record and twelve aksharas that followed it in line 1 are almost completely lost owing to the peeling off of a layer of the stone. The same defect has also obscured some letters here and there in other parts of the inscription. But fortunately the purport of all the lines of the inscription is quite clear. The characters closely resemble those employed in other records of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, written in the Gauḍīya script prevalent in Bengal and the neighbouring regions including parts of Bihar, such as the stone inscription[2] (from the Patna District) of V.S. 1553 (1496 A.D.) edited by myself. They exhibit characteristics slightly earlier than the letters of the Barakar (Burdwan District, West Bengal) inscriptions[3] of Śaka 1382 (1460 A.D.) or 1383 (1461 A.D. and Śaka 1468 (1546 A.D.). In my paper on the inscription of 1496 A.D., I have tried to explain the use of the early Bengali script in the Patna area during the medieval period. Nothing requires special mention in regard to the palaeography of the record, although it may be noticed that the anusvāra is written in both the Dēvanāgarī (cf. varāṁ in line 3) and the Bengali (cf. saṁ in line 4) fashions and that the figure 2 in line 4 resembles its form occasionally found in the Mehar plate of Śaka 1156 (1234 A.D.).[4] The language of the inscription is Sanskrit ; but it cannot be regarded as quite elegant and chaste. Its orthography does not invite any special notice.
The inscription bears the date in Śaka 1317 and V.S. 1452, in figures, at the end. At the beginning of line 3, the Vikrama year is quoted in words as yugm-ēśāsya-kṛit-aik-āvdē(bdē). The words yugma, īśāsya, kṛita and ēka mean respectively 2, 5, 4 and 1 and, according to the wellknown principle aṅkānāṁ vāmatō gotiḥ, give the year 1452. The lost letters at the beginning of line 1 appear to have similarly indicated the Śaka year 1317 in words. The said lost letters are followed by the passage ch= Āśvinē māsi śuklē vārē Śukrē daśamyām indicating the date : Āśvina-śudi 10, Friday. The same day is further referred to in the passage nṛipa-gurōs=tithau occurring in line 3 along with the year of the Vikrama era given in words. The expression nṛipa-guru has apparently been used to signify ‘ the foremost of kings ’ as in the Raghuvaṁśa.[5] The date Āśvina-śudi 10 is here called ‘ the royal tithi ’ because it is the celebrated Vijayā daśamī day which was the time prescribed for Indian monarchs to set out on digvijaya.[6] Thus the date mentioned in the inscription under study is the Vijayā daśamī tithi on Friday, V.S. 1458=Śaka 1317. It regularly corresponds to Friday, September 24, 1395 A.D. With the exception of the concluding passage giving the years of the Vikrama and Śaka eras, the whole inscription in written in verse. There are altogether three stanzas, the first in the Sragdharā metre and the remaining two in Anushṭubh. The first verse says that [in the Śaka year 1317, given in words] on Āśvina-śudi 10, Friday, several persons named Akrūra, Śrīlēśa, Pati and Kuśala erected (rōpitā) the kīrti of the celebrated Nāga, called Kauśika and endowed with the hood-jewel, who grants whatever is prayed for and removes all obstacles [in the way of his devotees]. As in many other cases,[7] the word kīrtti here seems to indicate a shrine meant for the Nāga deity Kauśika who many have been already in worship in the locality where Akrūra and others lived _________________________________________________
[1] See IHQ, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 130-31.
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