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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA No. 39─ SONEPUR INSCRIPTION OF BHANUDEVA (1 Plate) D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND The inscription under publication is written in eight lines engraved on a slab of stone lying in front of the temple of the goddess Khamēśvarī (Khambēśvarī or Stambhēśvarī) at Sonepur which was formerly the headquarters of the State of that name but now belongs to the Bolangir District of Orissa. It was briefly noticed by B. C. Majumdar[1] and B. Misra[2] but has been recently edited by K. B. Tripathi[3] with a translation but without any facsimile. Majumdar and Misra assign the inscription to the twelfth century A.D. The epigraph is edited in the following pages since, in our opinion, it has not been correctly deciphered and interpreted. The inscribed area on the stone slab measures about two feet in length and one foot in height while individual aksharas in the record are about one inch and a quarter high. The characters are Gauḍīya with certain characteristics of the Oriya alphabet. The sign for medial i is of the Oriya type ; but m and s are written in the Bengali fashion. In Sūnapūra in line 2, the letter s shows a cursive and peculiar form (cf. also the shape of the same letter in saüri in the same line). Chh is of the chchh type as in modern Oriya and not of the ksh type as found in records like the Oriya supplement of the Veligalani grant of 1458 A.D.[4]The form of initial i is later than that in the Alagum inscription (line 10) of 1141 A.D.[5], the Bhubaneswar inscription (line 1) of 1218 A.D.[6] and the Nagari plates (lines 132-33) of 1230-31 A.D.[7] But it is found in some records of the time of Anaṅgabhīma III (c. 1211-38 A.D.) such as the Puri inscription (No. 4, line 5) of 1237 A.D.,[8] while the earlier form is also noticed in later records like the Puri plates of 1395-97 A.D.[9] Y and p are written alike as in other medieval Orissan epigraphs. The numerical figures 1 and 2 in line 6 as well as 7 in line 2 are of the Telugu-Kannaḍa type while 3 is also of the same type sometimes found in the medieval records of Orissa.[10] On palaeographical grounds, the epigraph may be assigned to a date in the thirteenth or fourteenth century A. D. This suggestion is supported by the fact that it refers itself to the reign of Vīra-Bhānudēva who is undoubtedly one of the four kings of that name belonging to the imperial branch of the Eastern Gaṅga dynasty. Of these four rulers, Bhānu I began to rule about 1264 A.D., Bhānu II about 1305 A.D. and Bhānu III about 1353 A.D. while Bhānu IV ascended the throne sometime before 1414 A.D. It is difficult to assign the record to any one of these four kings with precision ; but palaeography seems to point rather to Bhānu I or II or III than to Bhānu IV since Oriya inscriptions of the fifteenth century generally exhibit more developed Oriya forms of the letters.
The language of the inscription is old Oriya. Interesting from the orthographical point of view are words like āiusva (Sanskrit āyushya) in lines 4-5 and vaïdya (Sanskrit vaidya) in line 5. Contractions as in paḍirāṅkra in line 3 is often found in medieval Orissan records, though _________________________________________________
[1] History of the Bengali Language, p. 249.
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