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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MAHISHMATI No.5; PLATE III A THE inscription was discovered by one of the Assistants of Sir John Marshall, Director General of Archaeology in India at Kānākhērā, a village near Sāñchi in the Bhopal State, Central India.1 It is now preserved in the Sāñchi Museum. The inscribed stone was found built into a well. The record was first briefly noticed by Mr. R.D. Banerji in the Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year 1917-18, p. 37, and later edited by him in the Epigraphia Indica, VoI. XVI, pp. 230 ff. It was re-edited by Mr. N.G. Majumdar, first in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series, Vol XIX (1923), pp. 337 ff., and later in the Monuments of Sāñchī, Vol. I, pp. 392 ff. and Vol.III, Pl. CXXXIX. Mr. Majumdar corrected some mistakes in the transcript of Mr. Banerji and gave a different reading of the date at the end. The record is edited here from an excellent ink impression kindly supplied by the Government Epigraphist for India. The inscription consist of six lines of writing, and covers a space, 6.75" broad and 2.5" high. It is in an imperfect state of preservation. Several aksharas towards the end of the first line have either become illegible or have been completely lost owing to the breaking off of the upper right edge of the stone. Besides, many more have been damaged in the middle of lines 4 and 5 by the flaking off of the surface of the stone. The size of the letters varies between 1.25" and .4".
The characters belong to the western variety of the southern alphabets. Their striking features are the elongated verticals of k, r and l, the beautiful superscripts curves denoting medical i (short and long) and rarely medial ā, and the ornamental forms of the subscript y and r. The following peculiarities may be noted:—n and n have a loop in the lower part; see tridaśa-gang-and senāpatēr =, both in l.1; dh has generally an oval shape; see dharmma-vijayinā, 1.2, but its archaic form is also noticed; see Śridharavarammanā in the same line; y, though still tripartite, has a hook for its left limb; see-nāyaka-1.2; and ś has generally a short horizontal bar but in ligatures it assumes a tripartite form; see śrādhayā, 1. 3 and śāśvatē, 1.4. On the evidence of palaeography, the inscription may be referred to the 4th century A.C. The language is Sanskrit. The record begins in prose, but is rounded off with a verse in the Sārdūlavīkrīdita metre, composed in a good kāvya style. The influence of Prakrit is seen in the forms trayōdaśamē and khānāpita. The orthography shows the usual reduplication of the consonant following r; see Śridharavarmmanā, 1. 2.
The inscription refers itself to the reign of them Mahādandanāyaka Śaka Śrīdharavarman who was the son of the Śaka Nanda. Though Śridharavarman belonged to the
Śaka race, he was a follower of the Hindu religion; for he was apparently described in the
mutilated line 1 as a worshipper of Svāmi-Mahāsēna (Skanda or Kārttikēya), the commander
of the celestial army. The object of the inscription is to record the excavation of a
well by Śrīdharavarman for the increase of welfare and prosperity, the acquisition of religious
merit and fame, and the everlasting attainment of heaven. 1Ep. Ind., Vol. XVI, p. 230. |
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