North Indian Inscriptions

ADDITIONAL INSCRIPTIONS

N o. 119; PLATE XCVIII
ERAN STONE PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF SRIDHARAVARMAN

THIS inscription is incised on a small stone pillar, afterwards converted into a Śiva-liṅga, which stands near the left bank of the Bīnā between the ancient town of Ēraṇ and the neighbouring village of Pēhēlējpur, in the Khurai tahsīl of the Saugor District in Madhya Pradesh. Another record on the same pillar, viⱬ., the posthumous inscription of Gōparāja, was discovered in 1874-75 by Sir Alexander Cunningham¹, and has been edited by Dr. Fleet in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. III, pp. 91 ff. The discovery of the present inscription is due to a fortuitous circumstances. During the inspection tour of 1950-51, Mr. Krishna Dev, Superintendent. Archæological Department, Central Circle, Patna, noticed that the last line of Gōparāja's inscription was concealed by some later accretions to the pīṭha or ablution-trough of the liṅga. He got these accretions removed, when the present inscription, which was lying concealed under the pīṭha, was disclosed. I came to know of this discovery from a photograph of the record taken by Mr. V. P. Rode, Assistant Curator, Central Museum, Nagpur. At my request Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra, Government Epigraphist for India, kindly supplied me with excellent inked estampages, from which the inscription is edited here.

The pillar, which is now fully exposed to view, measures about 5' 9" high and 1' 6" in diameter. It is the upper part of a large column which appears to have broken naturally in falling, as its bottom is irregularly cut. In the introduction to his article on the inscription of Gōparāja, Dr. Fleet has given the following description of the pillar:__ “The bottom part is octagonal; and the inscription² is at the top of this octagonal part, on three of the eight faces, each of which is about 7" broad … Above this, the pillar is sixteen-sided. Above this, it is again octagonal; and the faces here have the sculptures of men and women, who are probably intended for the Gōparāja of the inscription and his wife and friends;³ the compartment immediately above the centre of the inscription, represents a man and a woman, sitting, who must be Gōparāja and his wife. Above this, the pillar is again sixteen-sided. Above this, it is once more octagonal; and on two of the faces here, there are the remains of a quite illegible inscription of four lines, in characters of the same type with those of the inscription now published. Above this, the pillar curves over in sixteen flutes or ribs, into a round top. The pillar was converted into a liṅga, by fitting an ablution-trough to it; this was attached over the part where the inscription lay; and it was only by the breaking of it, that the greater part of the inscription was disclosed to view.” A new pīṭha was substituted later below the inscription of Gōparāja. When it was broken and the whole shaft was dug out, the present inscription was brought to view. It is incised on the lowest portion of the shaft on three of its eight faces, each measuring about 7" broad, on the side of opposite to that where the record of Gōparāja is engraved.

The writing, which originally covered a space 1' 9" broad by 1' 5" high, has suffered a good deal. The portion on the right-hand face is a almost completely obliterated, only an akshara here and there being still visible. That on the left-hand and middle faces also has suffered considerably ; but most of it can be read with patience and perseverance. The characters are of the western variety of the southern alphabets, closely resembling
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¹ C. A. S. I. R., Vol. X, p. 89.
² i.e., of Gôparāja.
³ The sculptures, which, according to Fleet, represent the friends of Gôparāja, are really those of horsemen. They belong to an earlier age, as shown below.