South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

this, the stone widens out again to the same breadth as above the facet containing the elephant ; and the sketch indicates that here there was a continuation of the writing, which, however, is now altogether illegible : it also indicates that, after a space representing about ten lines of writing, the remainder of the stone is broken away and lost.─ The extant portion of the writing, represented in the collotype, covers an area about 2′ 1″ broad by 6¾″ high. It is in a state of fairly good preservation, and can be read without any uncertainty.─ The characters are Kanarese, boldly formed and well executed. The size of them ranges from about ⅝″ in the ya of hesadeyara, line 2, to 1⅜″ in the ḷ of âḷe, line 3 ; and the ṇṭi of mêṇṭi, line 2, and the nnâ in line 3, are 2″ high. The distinct form of the lingual ḍ is very clear in lines 2 and 3. There is a final form of n in line 1, and of r in line 2. As regards the palӕography,─ the kh and l do not occur. The j occurs twice, in line 1, and, in both places, is of the old square type, closed ; in the collotype, it can be seen best in the jya of râjyaṅ, line l, No. 17. The ṅ occurs in the same word, in the akshara ṅge, line 1, No. 18 ; and, following the j in the usual manner,^[1] it, also, is of the old square type, closed. The b occurs once, subscript, in the akshara lab, line 1, No. 7 ; and it, again, is of the old square type, closed.─ The language is Kanarese, of the archaic type, in prose. The record presents, in line 2, mêṇṭi, as a variant of mêṭi, ‘ a big man, a chief, a head, a head servant.’ And it includes, in line 2, a word, gôsâsa, which is not found in dictionaries, and in respect of which we can only conjecture that it is an amplified form of gôsa, the tadbhava-corruption of the Sanskṛit gôshṭha, ‘ a cow-pen, a station of cow-herds.’^[2]─ The orthography does not present anything calling for comment, except the use of s for ś in Subhachandra, line 1.

The extant portion of the inscription is only the opening passage of a record, introductory to matter which is now lost. It refers itself to the reign of a king named the Mahârâja

Southern India, Plate iii. No. 120 ; here, the elephant seems to be “ caparisoned.” And Dr. Burnell has given us the seal of apparently another grant of the same series, in his South-Indian Palӕography, the Plate opposite p. 106, the seal marked Chêra ; here, again, the elephant has a band or strap round apparently the throat. In both these instances, the elephant is standing, and has the tip of its trunk turned up inwards.

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^[1] See a remark on page 46 above.
^[2] As, however, this meaning is not conclusively established yet, the word itself will be used, without translation.─ Other cases in which the same word, gôsâsa, occurs, are as follows :─ (1) The Paṭṭadakal inscription of the time of Dhruva ; Ind. Ant. Vol. XI. p. 125, text line 5. Here, the harlot Bâdipoḍḍi or Bâḷipoḍḍi is mentioned as having given to the temple (of Lôkêśvara) an uttama-gôsâsa, “ an excellent gôsâsa, a gôsâsa of the best kind,” and a horse-chariot and an elephant-chariot, and as giving some land and an udhayamukhî or pregnant cow.─ (2) An inscription of the time of Amôghavarsha I. at Chiñchli in the Gadag tâluka, dated in the Vijaya saṁvatsara, coupled with Śaka-Saṁvat 793 by mistake for 795 (expired) in A.D. 874 : not yet published ; I quote from an ink-impression. This inscription records that, on the twelfth tithi of the bright fortnight of the month Phâlguna, someone, whose name is illegible in the ink-impression, fasted and, having laved the feet of the fifty-seven Mahâjanas of Chiñchila and having given them a thousand cows, gave them a gôsâsa ; and it further records that a son of one of the village-headmen gave a gôsâsa, together with a tank and a garden (ârams ; perhaps here meaning, rather, a pasture-ground). This latter record, in particular, tends to connect gôsâsa with cows. And, considering how important a part the cow plays in the private as well as the religious life of the Hindûs, we may easily imagine that in former times the cows at night, instead of being brought home to individual houses inside the villages and towns as is done now, were kept and guarded all together in large communal cow-pens in charge of regularly appointed officials, and that the gift of such a cow-pen, whether to the establishment of a temple or for a whole village, would be a highly meritorious act.─ From gôsâsa we have, with the affix iga,─ an affix which forms nouns denoting “ makers, changers (dealers), persons in employment,” etc. (see Dr. Kittel’s edition of the Śabdamaṇidarpaṇa, p. 232, sûtra 197),─ gôsâsiga, which seems to mean ‘ a person in charge of a gôsâsa,’and to be equivalent to the gôsâsada mêṇṭi of the present record ; it occurs in the Aihoḷe inscription of the time of Vijayâditya (Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. p. 285, text line 3), where mention is made of “ Maruvarma, of the Gôsâsigas of Sûraval ”─ And we also have gôsâsi, apparently as a shorter form of gôsâsiga. This word occurs, qualifying a proper name, in an inscription at Nîralgi, to be published hereafter. And an inscription of A.D. 1060 at Sûḍi in the Rôṇ tâluka─ (not yet published ; I quote from an ink-impression)─ mentions, among the boundaries of a village named Sivuṇûr, a tank called gôsâsiya-kere, “ the tank of the Gôsâsi or of the Gôsâsis.”─ It may be added that the Bombay Postal Directory shews a village named ‘ Gosâsi’ in the Khêḍ tâluka of the Poona district.