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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
The characters of the inscription belong to the Gauḍīya alphabet and closely resemble the
script used in East Indian records of about the twelfth century A.D. such as those of the Sēnas of
Bengal and the later Pālas of Bengal and Bihār. The only point of palaeographical interest
in the epigraph is that the letter l has two different forms exactly as in records like the Naulāgarh
inscription[1] of Vigraphapāla. The language is corrupt Sanskrit as in numerous other records,
especially private ones, discovered in different parts of Bihār.[2] The orthography of the inscription
under study also resembles that of many other contemporary records from Bihār in exhibiting
considerable influence of the East Indian pronunciation.[3]
The record, like the grants of the Pālas and Sēnas, is not dated according to any era. In the
corrupt language of the inscription, its date is quoted as pramēsara-ity-ādi-śrī-Valalaśēṇa-samata
9. In this passage pramēsara-ity-ādi stands for Sanskrit paramēśvar-ēty-ādi.[[4] We know that
the imperial title Paramēśvara-Paramabhaṭṭāraka-Mahārājādhirāja or Paramabhaṭṭāraka-Mahārājādhirāja-Paramēśvara[5] was often condensed in the medieval records, especially of
Eastern India, to Paramēśvar-ētyādi-rāj-āvalī-pūrvavat[6] or Paramabhaṭṭārak-ēty-ādi-rāj-āvalī-pūrvavat[7]. Sometimes the word pūrvaka was used in the place of pūrvavat while at times the expression
was further contracted by omitting a word or two from the end. There is no doubt that Paramēśvar-ēty-ādi is a more abbreviated form of the imperial title group, exactly as samast-ēty-ādi[8]
which similarly refers to the epithet samasta-supraśasty-upēta often noticed at the beginning of
the string of imperial titles, as for instance, in the inscription[9] of the later Sēnas. The word samata
in the passage of our inscription quoted above apparently stands for Saṁvat (i.e., Saṁvatsarē).[10]
Thus the date quoted is the ninth regnal year of an imperial ruler named Valalaśēṇa. There can
hardly be any doubt that Valalaśēṇa is a wrong spelling for Ballālasēna. No monarch with the
peculiar name Valalaśēṇa is known to have ruled over any part of Eastern India in any period of
history while the Sēna king Bellālasēna ruled over Bengal, and also over parts of Bihār according
to traditions, in circa 1158-79 A.D.,[11]M falling in a period to which, as noted above, the inscription
under review has to be referred on paleographical grounds. It may be pointed out that ś for
s is a peculiarity of Bengali pronunciation while the typically South Indian name Ballāla is
due to the Sēnas having migrated to Bengal from Karṇāṭa, i.e., the Kannaḍa-speaking area of
the Deccan. The inscription, dated in the ninth regnal year of Valalaśēṇa(Ballālasēna)
has therefore to be assigned to a date about 1166 A.D.
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[1] JBRS, Vol. XXXVII, Parts 3-4, p. 4, Plate I, No. 1. Note the different forms of l used in the words pāla
and Krimilīya in line 1 of the epigraphic text. Cf. JRASBL, Vol. IV, p. 395.
[2] See above Vol. XXVIII, pp. 144-45 ; JBRS, op. cit., p. 10, etc.
[3] Cf. JBRS, op. cit., pp. 9-10.
[4] As to the change of para to pra, cf. pti for pati in an inscription from Bihar (above, Vol. XXVII, p. 144).
Another inscription, examined by me at Jhāmṭā near Bihārsharif, gives the name Dāmōdara as Dāmōdra. But such
contractions are quite common in the epigraphic and literary records of Orissa. Cf. Oriya pramēśvara in the
Madala Pāñjī, ed. A.B. Mahanti, p. 31, lines 11, 15, etc.
[5] In the charters of the East Indian monarchs of the Pāla, Sēna and other dynasties, Paramēśvara usually
comes first ; but in the grants of such imperial families as the Gāhaḍavālas we have Paramabhaṭṭāraka at the
beginning.
[6] Cf. R. D. Banerji, The Pālas of Bengal (Mem. A.S.B., Vol. V, No. 3), p. 111, etc. For similar contractions
used in the grants of the Gāhaḍavālas of the U. P., see H. C. Ray, Dynastic History of Northern India, Vol. I,
pp. 541, 545.
[7] R. D. Banerji, op. cit., p. 110 ; JASB, N.S., Vol. XX, p. 372 ; JASL, Vol. XVIII, p. 71, etc.
[8] JASB, N. S., Vol. XX, p. 374.
[9] N. G. Majumdar, Inscriptions of Bengal, Vol. III, pp. 124, 136, 145.
[10] See IHQ, Vol. XXX, pp. 382 ff.
[11] History of Bengal, Dacca University, Vol. I, pp. 216-18.
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