South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

month darkness is delayed, as it were, for a long time by the moonlike faces of the exceedingly beautiful women.

( V. 4.) In that (town) there was Chaṇḍapa, the crown of the family of the Prâgvâṭas, whose fame was as white as kuṭaja flowers (and) who surpassed in liberality the group of the wishing-trees.

(V. 5) In consequence of the maturing of his good actions there was (born) to him a son named Chaṇḍaprasâda, a golden staff on the palace of his family, provided with a streaming banner, his fame.

(V. 6.) From him, who was not shallow-hearted,^[1] (and) who resembled the ocean of milk, sprang Sôma, who by his own virtues caused thrills (of joy) to the good, as (the moon causing thrills) by her beams (sprang from the ocean of milk which is deep in the centre).

(V. 7.) From him was born Aśvarâja, who constantly bore in his heart devotion to the lord of the Jinas. His beloved wife was Kumâradêvî, as Dêvî, the mother of Kumâra, (was the wife) of the destroyer of Tripura.^[2]

(V.8.) Their first son was the minister called Lûṇiga. By fate he obtained, though being (still) a youth, a residence in the same world as Vâsava^.[3]

(V. 9.) That pure-mined minister Lûṇiga, whose intelligence despised, as it were, even the wisdom of Dhishaṇa,^[4] was ranked foremost among eminent persons by men of judgment,

(V.10.) His younger brother was the illustrious Malladêva, the paragon of a minister, who had taken refuge with Mallidêva,^[5] who had attained wisdom by subduing his passions, (and) whose mind did not covet either the money of the wives of others.

(V.11) As to performing religious duties, as to clothing the bareness of people, (and) as to repairing what has been broken^,[6] the Creator did not create a rival of Malladêva.

(V.12) The fame of Malladêva, surpassing the beams of the moon freed from the masses of dark clouds, has seized by the throat the rays of the teeth of Hastimalla.^[7]

(V.13.) Long live the younger brother of him who had conquered his senses, called the illustrious Vastupâla, who caused marvellous showers of delight by the nectar of his poetry, (and) who, in practicing liberality, effaced the letters of misery found on the foreheads of the learned !

(V. 14.) Vastupâla, the foremost among the ministers of the Chulukyas and among poets, never commits a fraud of money in his secretaryship or a plagiarism in composing poems.

(V.15.) Brilliant is that chief among ministers, his younger brother Têjaḥpâla, who watches over the abundant splendor of his master ; who is to be dreaded by the wicked ; (and) whose fame spreads in all directions.

(V.16.) Who can fathom the natures of Têjaḥpâla and Vishṇu, as the rules (of conduct) for the three worlds are in the deep interior (of the first) and the string of the three worlds^[8] in the cavity of the belly (of the second)?

(V. 17.) These (brothers) had the following seven sisters, called, in due order, Jâlhû, Mâû. Sâû, Dhanadêvî, Sôhagâ, Vayajukâ, and Padamaladêvî.
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^[1] The word madhya appears to be used here as a synonym of antara which, according to Amara III. 3, 186 has also the meaning of antarâtman.
^[2] I.e. Ṥiva.
^[3] I.e. in common parlance, he died.
^[4] I. e. Bṛihaspati.
^[5] Mallidêva is the name of the nineteenth Jina of the present Avasarpiṇî.
^[6] I believe that the terms bhuvana-chchhidra-pidhâna and vibhinna-saṁdhâna refer to Malladêva’s works of charity, but they may be rendered also by ‘ veiling the weak points of people ’ and ‘ reconciling those who have fallen out with one another.’
^[7] I.e. Indra’s elephant.
^[8] The poet seems to conceive the three worlds as pearls strung together.