North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

RATANPUR STONE INSCRIPTION OF PRITHVIDEVA II : YEAR 915

all religious precepts, has done charitable works:- He has made a lake to the east of Ratnapura by constructing (a dam in the space between) hills near the village Khāḍā; (he has) raised an orchard containing a hundred mango trees . . . . and extremely kind-hearted as he is, he has made a small tank at the foot of the hill (near) the village Saḍaviḍa which lies to the north-east and is provided with (an orchard of ) three hundred mango trees attractive to the minds of all people, (and) also the tank Ratnēśvarasāgara; he has caused to be made on the outskirts of Vikarṇapura a tank filled with abundant water and provided with the maṇḍapa of a temple, a pleasure-grove containing several temples and monasteries together with enclosing walls, a temple containing an image of Rēvanta (and) also a very deep well at the foot of Dēvaparvata. In the village Rāṭhēvaisamā (?) he has made a small tank, and near the hill Vijjala on the way to Hasivadha to the east of the town Bhauḍā he has constructed-

(Verse 29) (another) tank covered with water lilies, which, being beneficial to all creatures, is, as it were, the essence of all religions on the earth.

(V. 30) The pious wife of the illustrious Vallabharāja, Śvētalladēvī by name, did this of her own accord.

(Line 28) In the Kalachuri year 910, during the victorious reign of the king, the illustrious Prithvīdēva (II).

May the world be happy !

NO. 96 ; PLATE LXXVIII
RATANPUR STONE INSCRIPTION OF PRITHVIDEVA II : (KALACHURI) YEAR 915

THIS inscription was brought to notice as early as 1825 by Sir Richard Jenkins who published a short account^¹of it in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV, pp. 504-5. It has since been referred to twice by Dr. Kielhorn in the Epigraphia Indica^² and has also been briefly noticed by Rai Bahadur Hiralal in his Inscriptions in C.P. and Berar.^³ It is edited here from the original stone which is now preserved in the Central Museum, Nagpur.⁴

According to a manuscript history of Ratanpur, the stone bearing this inscription was discovered within the Bādal Mahāl^⁵ of the fort at Ratanpur, 16 miles north of Bilaspur in the Bilaspur District of Madhya Pradesh. More than 75 years ago one Reva Ram Kayastha of Ratanpur prepared a transcript of the inscription for the Chief Commissioner
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¹ Jenkins’account of this record was based on the report of his Śāstrī Vinayakrao Anandrao Aurangabadkar who examined this and some other records at Sirpur, Raipur and Ratanpur. The manuscript of his report written in Mōḍī characters is still preserved in the Indio Office Library. A photographic copy of it was kindly supplied to me by the Librarian, Dr. H. N. Randle. As shown, below, the report is incorrect in several places.
² Vol. I, p.33 and Vol. V, Appendix, p. 60, n. 1.
³ Second ed., pp. 127 ff. This is also probably the inscription mentioned by Cunningham’s Assistant, Beglar in C.A.S.I.R., Vol. VII, p. 214, though he says that it is dated in 979; for his description of it fits the present record. ‘The centre of the slab which is a large one’, says he, ‘is worn quite smooth; it opens with an invocation to Śiva.’
⁴This inscription was edited for the first time by me in Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVI, pp. 255 ff.
⁵ Jenkins also says that the stone was ‘within the fort of Ratanpur, near the Bādal Mahāl,’ Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV, p. 505. Beglar, however, was told by some people at Bilaspur that the slab originally came from Dhangaon (i.e., Dhanpur, a village in the former Peṇḍrā Zamindārī in the Bilaspur District which contains several ruins). If the object of the inscription was to record the gift of a village in honour of Śiva under the name Sōmanātha installed at Kumarākōṭa (see vv. 36-39). the inscription may have been originally put up at that place and later on removed to Ratanpur.