South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

of these two cases is responsible for some doubt regarding the interpretation of the evidence of the inscription under study, although the same style of introducing a subject us also noticed in some other inscriptions.

In the first half of verse 1 in line 1 we have the expression Garutma[d*]-ratha-yāyinā, preceded by the expression tēna, and the aksharas vatā which stand at the beginning of the line and appear to represent the latter part of the expression bhagavatā. Garutmad-ratha-yāyin means ‘one who moves in a chariot that is Garutmat (Garuḍa) ’ and therefore refers to the god Vishṇu. The aksharas pāṇinā in the second half of the same stanza stand at the beginning of line 2 and suggest the word originally engraved to have been Chakrapāṇinā, Chakrapāṇi (literally, ‘ one holding the discus in his hand ’) being a well-known epithet or name of Vishṇu. There is thus little doubt that the stanza in question, with which the record begins, contained an adoration of Bhagavat Vishṇu. The lost verb to go with the name and epithets of the god in the third case-ending (anuktē kartari tṛitīyā) seems to have been jitam as in the maṅgala at the beginning of numerous epigraphic records.^[1]

Verse 2 runs : Jitvā ripu-balaṁ saṁkkhē(kḥyē) ramyaṁ pura[ṁ*] daś-ādi[kam |] .............. [na]ra-vyāgghrē narēndr-Ādityavarddhanē ||

The lost word at the beginning of the second half of the stanza seems to be something like pālayati or praśāsati. Thus the verse means : “ When king Ādityavardhana, the best among men, is protecting the city with (its name having the word) daśa at the beginning, after having routed the enemy’s army in a battle.” This no doubt looks like a clause introducing the description of an event that happened during the reign of king Ādityavardhana of Daśapura (i.e. old Mandasōr). But, as has been already indicated above, the mention of this event, viz. the excavation of a tank by Mahārāja Gauri, comes about the end of the record and the intervening stanzas deal with Gauri’s ancestry.

Verse 3 states how there was (āsīt) something called Māna... and how king Yāśōgupta, the worthy son of Rāshṭravardhana, was the vardhana (i.e. bestower of prosperity) to that thing. There is no doubt that the letters māna represent the first part of the name of the royal family to which king Yaśōgupta belonged. The Chhōṭī Sādrī inscription gives the name of this family as Māṇavāyaṇi, although it is difficult to determine the actual form of the name given in the present record from the traces of the aksharas following māna. Both Yaśōgupta and his father are mentioned in the Chōṭī Sādrī inscription ; but it gives the name of Rāshṭṛavardhana as Rāshṭra who is represented as the son of Rājyavardhana and grandson of Puṇyasōṃa. The next stanza (verse 4 which is actually half of a stanza) mentions Mahārāja Gauri, also known from the Chhōṭī Sādrī inscription, as the son of Yaśōgupta. The name of Gauri is given in the third case-ending (anuktē kartari tṛitīyā) as the performer of a deed, although, as noted above, the said deed (viz. the excavation of a tank) is referred to in a stanza (verse 8) which comes after the intervening description of Gauri’s maternal grandfather and mother as well as certain other activities of the king. This abrupt introduction (in parenthesis as it were) of the king’s mother as the daughter of his maternal grandfather is due to the fact that the tank in question was apparently excavated for the merit of the queen mother who was then dead.

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^[1] For the expression jitam bhagavatā as an introductory maṅgala in inscriptions, cf. The Successors of the Sātavāhanas, pp. 197, 205, 294, 309. The Hebbaṭa grant of Kadamba Vishṇuvarman I begins with the following verse :

Jitam bhagavatā tēna Vishṇunā yasya vakshasi | Śrīs=svayaṁ bhāti dēvaś=cha nābhi-padmē Pitāmahaḥ || (ibid., p. 292).