South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

Âmôd tâluka of the Broach district.^[1] But a village in Gujarât, below the Ghauts, is hardly the locality that would be selected for the halt of an army during the rains ; especially, as the preliminary to operations on the Tuṅgabhadrâ. The verse about Mârassalba-Mârâśarva, with the light that is thrown on it by the present record form Guḍigere, shews that a sudden and rapid incursion was made by Gôvinda III., from a distant encampment in the Vindhya mountains into the heart of the Dhârwâr district. And it seems clear to me that Śrîbhavana is to be identified with the modern Shiggaon, the head-quarters of the Baṅkâpur tâluka of the Dhârwâr district, only about thirty miles distant from the Tuṅgabhadrâ. The ancient forms of the name of Shiggaon would be Sirigave and Śrîgrâma, or in Sanskṛit Śrîpura. And the composer of the verse used bhavana, ‘ a place of abode, mansion, home,’ etc., instead of any other ending, to suit his metre.

TEXT.^[2]

1 Svasti Śrî-Mâra^[3]ssalba-mahârâjan pr[i]thuvî-râjyaṅ-geye Su(śu)bhachandra- paṇḍitarâ^[4] râ-
2 he^[5]sadeyara Indammana gôsâsada mêṇṭi Daḍig-arasar 3 nnâḍ^[6]-âḷe Ôm^[7]

TRANSLATION.

Hail ! While the glorious Mahârâja Mârassalba was reigning over the earth ; and while Daḍigarasa, the headman of the gôsâsa^[8] of Indamma who was of . . . . . . .^[9] of Śubhachandrapaṇḍita, was governing the district. Ôm !

C.-MULGUND INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF PANCHALADEVA ; A.D. 975.

This inscription has been brought to notice by me in Dyn. Kan. Distrs. p. 307, and in Vol. V. above, p. 172. It is now published for the first time. I edit it, and the collotype (see opposite page 253 above) is given, from an ink-impression obtained by me in 1883-84 or 1884-85.

Muḷgund is a village about twelve miles towards the south-west-by-south from Gadag, the head-quarters of the Gadag tâluka of the Dhârwâr district. The Indian Atlas sheet No, 41 (1852) shews it as ‘ Moolgoond.’ The official compilation Bombay Places and Common Official Words (1878) wrongly certifies it as ‘ Mulgund,’ with l instead of ḷ. The existence of the place is carried book to A.D. 866 by the Nîlgund inscription, which mentions it as Muḷgunda and marks it as the chief town of a circle of villages known as the Muḷgunda twelve, including Nîrgunda-Nîlgund, and lying in the Beḷvola three-hundred district.^[10] We already know one record from this place,─ theinscription of the time of the Râshṭrakûṭa king Kṛishṇa II., dated A.D. 902-903 ;^[11] and there are some twenty other records there. The present inscription is on a stone at a temple of Râmadêva at Muḷgund.

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^[1] History of Gujarât (in the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I. part I.), p. 123.─ There is also a Sarbhôṇ (so certified, with the lingual nasal, in Bombay Places and Common Official Words) in the Bârḍôlî tâluka of the Surat district.
^[2] From the ink-impression.
^[3] This syllable, ra, was at first omitted, and then was inserted, rather small, below the â of the mâ.
^[4] It seems that at first ru was written, and then an attempt was made to correct it into râ. But it is possible that the akshara was abandoned, as being badly formed and not clear, and that the following râ was then formed as the final akshara of paṇḍitarâ. In that case, the next word is hesadeyara,─ not râhesadeyara.
^[5] This is rather an anomalous character. The vowel e is quite distinct, before the h. At the bottom of the h, towards the right, there is a loop which seems to be intentional ; but, whether it was meant to modify the e into some other vowel, or what else may be the purport of it, is not apparent.
^[6] Read nâḍ ; or else arasar=nnâḍ, instead of arasar nnâḍ.
^[7] Represented by a plain symbol.
^[8] See page 255 above, and note 2.
^[9] The meaning of the genitive plural râhesadeyara or hesadeyara (see note 4 above) is not apparent ; except that it seems to give the name of a sect.
^[10] See pages 98, 107, above.
^[11] Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. X. pp. 167, 190. It will shortly be re-edited in this journal.