South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

At the top of the stone there are sculptures, of which the principle one, in the center, is a liṅga on its abhishêka-stand. On the proper right, there is an image of some god, squatting and facing full-front ; beyond this there is a worshipper, kneeling towards the god ; and above these there are the sun and moon. On the proper left, there is a cow, standing towards the liṅga, and with a calf sucking at her under ; and above these there is the bull Nandi, recumbent and similarly facing towards the liṅga. These sculptures are all inside a panel, above the centre of which there is some ornamental device, of a circular shape, the exact nature of which is not recognisable.─ The writing covers an area about 1′ 10¼″ broad by 8½″ high. It is in a state of fairly good preservation, and can be read without any doubt, except in the first eight or nine letters of line 7, the lower parts of which are broken away. It is, however, only a fragment, the body of the record having been broken away and apparently lost.─ The characters are Kanarese, well formed and well executed, of the regular type of the period to which the record refers itself. The size of them ranges from about ½″ to ⅞″. They present nothing calling for comment, except the use of the somewhat rare mediӕval forms of m, in the upper m of varmma and dharmma, line 1, and of v in the upper v of pûrvvâpara, line 4, which have been noticed in Vol. V. above, p. 237.─ The language is Kanarese, of the archaic type, in prose. In line 3, we have siṁgha as a tadbhava-corruption of the Sanskṛit siṁha, ‘ a lion,’ and komaraka as a fuller form of komara, = kuvara, a tadbhava-corruption of kumâra, ‘ a prince,’ and bîma, the tadbhava-corruption of bhîma, ‘ terrible.’ In peldore, line 4, we have the somewhat unusual form pel for per, ‘ great.’ In the 5, we have bidiye, as a variant of bidige which is the more usual tadbhava-corruption of the Sanskṛit dvitîyâ, ‘ the second tithi.’^[1] In line 6, we have baḷa as a variant of the better known baṇa, which is in use to the present day, in the Kanarese country, to denote sometimes the different branches of the families of hereditary Pâṭîls and Kuḷkarṇîs (especially of Pâṭîls), and sometimes the different families that have shares in the watans, as, for instance, when there are both a Jain baṇa and a Liṅgâyat baṇa of Pâṭîls ;^[2] and, in respect of the whole word baḷanuv, we may note that, though it is a neuter nominative, it is formed with n instead of the more usual m, and that, for the final of the copulative ending nṁ, there has been used in saṁdhi v, instead of the m which was more usual in the archaic language. And, in the same line, we have a word eleya-bhoja[ga] (apparently equivalent to elegâra, tambuling, ‘ a seller of betel-leaves ’), the second component of which does not seem to be explained in dictionaries.^[3] ─ In respect of orthography, there is nothing to be noticed except the use of s for s in ś Saka, line 5.

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^[1] Under bidige in his Kannaḍa-English Dictionary, Dr. Kittel has quoted vidiye as the Telugu form, and vidiyai as the Tamil form.
^[2] Baḷa occurs, in the same sense, in line 45 of one of the inscriptions at Naregal in the Rôṇ tâluka, where mention is made of “ the two baḷas of Narayaṁgal ” (Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. XI. p. 238). And lines 49, 51, and 52 of the same record present it in another sense, namely to denote the rent-free service-lands of certain Gâvuṇḍas or Pâṭîls. In the latter sense, it occurs also in line 81 of the Saundatti inscription of A.D. 1228 (id. Vol. X. p. 270, and Archӕol. Surv. West Ind. Vol. III. p. 114) ; and this record uses, in line 70, also the exactly equivalent word gauḍuvânya. The case used in the Saundatti record is formed with n, as in the present instance,─ baḷan=oḷage. The cases used in the Naregal record are formed with the more customary d,─ baḷad=oḷage, baḷadim.─ The word baṇa is also used, I think, in the general meaning of ‘ a faction.’ Dr. Kittel’s Dictionary gives baṇa as the Southern Marâṭha form of paṇa, ‘ any tribe ; a sectarian division.’
^[3] In this record, the second component of eleya-bhojaga is distinctlywritten with the aspirated bh. I am not sure whether the vowel should be taken as the short o or as the long ô.─ With the unaspirated b, we have the same word, eleya-bojaga in lines 21-22 and 28-29 of the Koḍikop inscription of A.D. 1144, which mentions “ the five-hundred-and-four Eleyabojagas ”(Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. XI. pp. 254, 257). In this form, bojaga, the word is given in Dr. Kittel’s Dictionary ; but only as a tadbhava-corruption of the Sanskṛit bhujaga, bhujaṁga, ‘ a snake.’ He also gives bojagatana in the sense of ‘ lechery.’ The Ablûr record of A.D. 1104 presents a word which appears as bojaṁgutana or bhojaṁgutana in line 82 of one version, and as bhojagatana in line 86 of the other version (see Vol. V. above, p. 231, note 9). There can be hardly any reference there to lechery ; and the word seems to stand there for eleyabojagatana or eleyabhojagatana, ‘ the occupation of a seller of betel-leaves,’ or else to denote some impost on that trade.