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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA Nāigaum. Varakhēḍ is famous for its old shrine of Nāgēśvara. Its older name therefore may have been Nāgagrāma modified later to Nāyagāma and lastly to Nāigauṁ. This suggestion is borne out by the evidence of the Brahma Purāṇa[1] wherein the following story is told about the name of the place. King Śūrasēna of the lunar dynasty ruling at Pratishṭhāna had no issue. After a time his queen gave birth to a snake named Nāgēśvara who was really a son of Śēsha and had been cursed by Śiva. He studied the Vēdas and Śāstras and was later married to Bhōgavatī, the daughter of king Vijaya ruling in the east. Bhōgavatī and Nāgēśvara bathed in the Gōdāvarī and devoutly worshipped Śiva. The place where they worshipped came to be known as Nāgatīrtha and the liṅga worshipped by them as Nāgēśvara. Sēuṇadēśa, mentioned in verse 30 (line 76), is the country named after Sēuṇachandra I (c. 800 A. D.), the son of Dṛiḍhaprahāra. The kingdom founded by his father was expanded by Sēuṇachandra on both banks of the Godāvarī from Nasik to Devagiri so as to include the modern Districts of Aurangabad and East and West Khandesh as well as portions of Ahmednagar and Nasik. Our grant fittingly styles Gōdāvarī as the ornament of the Sēuṇa country.
TEXT[2] [Metres : verses 1, 11, 13, 24, 29, 31, 32, 35-37 Anushṭubh ; verse 2 Mandākrāntā ; verses 3, 4, 12, 15-18, 22, 27, 30 Śārdūlavikrīḍita ; verses 5, 8, 20, 21, 23, 34 Vasantatilakā ; verse 6 Śikhariṇī ; verses 7, 9, 10, 25, 26, 28 Sragdharā ; verse 14 Āryā ; verse 19 Pṛithvī ; verse 33 Śālinī.] First Plate
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[1] Ānandāśrama ed., III, 86.
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