South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

No. 5─SENAKAPAT INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF SIVAGUPTA BALARJUNA

(1 Plate)

M. G. DIKSHIT, SAUGOR, AND D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND

The stone bearing the inscription under publication was found in the house of a Brāhmaṇa resident of Sēnakapāṭ, a village in the forest area on the right bank of the Mahānadī, about two miles to the south of Sirpur (ancient Śrīpura, capital of Dakshiṇa-Kōsala) in the Raipur District of Madhya Pradesh. The inscribed stone is reported to have been brought from the ruins in the western part of the village, which contains two big Śiva-liṅgas, each about 2½ feet in height, apparently marking the sites of two temples. To which one of these temples the inscription originally belonged cannot be determined. The stone is now preserved in the Museum attached to the Saugor University.

The inscription is incised on a large well-dressed slab of Vindhyan sandstone, rectangular in shape and reddish buff in colour. It is about 30 inches in length, 18 inches in height and 3 inches in thickness. The slab is broken into two unequal sections which, however, dovetail into each other quite well. A letter or two which are damaged in most of the lines of writing can be fairly satisfactorily made out in almost all cases. Only a few such aksharas have to be restored with the help of the context. On the whole, the preservation of the record is not unsatisfactory. The inscription consists of 23 lines of writing which is divided into two sections. The first of these sections runs from the beginning to line 17 and the second from line 18 to the end (line 23).

The characters belong to the Northern Alphabet of the seventh or eighth century A. D. and closely resemble those of other contemporary stone inscriptions discovered in the neighborhood, particularly the inscriptions^[1] of the time of the king during whose reign the present epigraph was also engraved. The record employs the initial vowels a (lines 7, 10, 11, 21), ā (lines 10, 18, 20, 21), i (lines 2, 6, 8, 9, 12, 15), u (lines 1, 23) and ṛi (line 23). In some cases, there is little difference between the signs of medial u and subscript n (cf. sūnu and ºnnati in line 23). The medial sign of ē is differently made sometimes as a śirō-mātrā, but sometimes as a pṛishṭha-mātra (cf. udvēllanº in line 1, ānuyānē in line 2, etc.). The letter n has two forms (cf. samānaṁ and niśchalaṁ in line 12), one of which resembles in some cases a form of r (cf. ripu in lines 2-3, bhara-nirbhara in line 11) and in a few cases also of t (cf. pravisṛitaiº in line 11, nirvṛiti-dhanaṁ in line 21). The letter b has been indicated by the sign of v. The conjunct ry exhibits both its earlier and later forms (cf. r=yasya in line 12 and ºr==yāgasya in line 18). For the final form of some consonants, of. samyak in line 16 and ºmān in line 23. The first and second halves of stanzas are marked respectively by a single and double daṇḍa, of which the former as well as the left side member of the latter has a small projection in the middle towards the left.

The language of the inscription is Sanskrit. With the exception of the introductory maṅgala, the whole record is written in verse. There are altogether 30 stanzas in various metres. As regards orthography, it may be noted that final m at the end of the second and fourth feet of verses has invariably been changed to anusvāra. Before ś, the anusvāra has been changed to ṅ (cf. śītāṅśu in line 3, etc.). The inscription bears no date. But the king, during whose

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^[1] For the Sirpur Lakshmaṇa temple inscription, see above, Vol. XI, pp. 190 ff. and Plate. For another Sirpur stone inscription of the same reign, see Cunningham’s A. S. Rep., Vol. XVII, Plate XVIII A, and Ind. Ant., Vol. XVIII, pp. 197 f. The same king’s copper-plate grants. However, exhibit characters of the box-headed type. Cf. the Mallar (above, Vol. XXIII, pp. 113 ff.). Bardula (ibid., Vol. XXVII, pp. 287 ff.) and Lodhia (ibid., pp. 319 ff.) plates.