North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

of the Central Provinces, which is now included in the aforementioned MS. history of Ratanpur.^¹The stone was then apparently in a state of good preservation, for Reva Ram's transcript has no lacunæ. It has since then suffered in a most deplorable manner especially in the middle of lines 5-35, where from 3 to 39 aksharas have been lost in each line. Lines 13 and 14 have been completely effaced except for a few aksharas at one end. In the extant portion also, several letters here and there have become partly or wholly illegible. Unfortunately Reva Ram's transcript affords little aid in such places as it is full of inaccuracies, judging from the extant portions of the record.^² A patient examination of the original has enabled me to prepare the subjoined transcript from which it would be possible to form a general idea of the whole record.

The inscribed portion measures 2' 9½” broad and 1' 9½” high and contains 36 lines. The characters are Nāgarī. The average size of the letters is .4”. The medial diphthongs are shown by pṛishṭhamātrās; ṅ is still without a dot; see, e.g., -bhṛiṅga-, 1.2; the rare jh occurs in -jhāṁkṛitaiḥ, 1. 24 and -jhaṁkāra-, 1. 27; the upper loop of th is not open; see -pratyarthi-pṛithvīpatau, 1. 20 ; in its subscript from the letter is still laid on its side; see -pāntha-, 1. 24 ; finally, dh has not yet developed a horn on the left ; see dhārādharēṇa, 1.2. The language is Sanskrit. Except for ōṁ namaḥ Śivāya in the beginning ans the date at the end, the record is metrically composed throughout. It contains call 45 verses, all of which seem to have been numbered. The orthography does not call for any notice except that the consonant following r is generally reduplicated and v is throughout used for b.

The inscription is one of Brahmadēva a feudatory prince of Pṛithvīdēva II, of the Kalachuri Dynasty of Ratanpur. The object of it is to record the religious and charitable works of Brahmadēva at several places. It is dated in the year 915 (expressed in decimal figures only) of an unspecified era. This date must, of course, be referred to the Kalachuri era. The year, if expired, would correspond to 1163-64 A.C. This is the last known date^³ for Pṛithvīdēva, for the next certain Kalachuris date 919 belongs to the reign of his successor Jājalladēva II.

The inscription opens with the customary obeisance to Śiva, which is followed by three verses invoking the blessings of the deity. The next verse describes Śēsha, the lord of serpents. Verses 5-8 eulogise the Talahāri-maṇḍala which is called an ornament of the earth. Then begins a description of the family of Brahmadēva who put up the present record. His father Pṛithvīpāla is eulogised in verses 8 and 9 as a very valiant and famous personage. His son Brahmadēva was the foremost of the feudatories (maṇḍalik-āgraṇī) evidently of the contemporary Kalachuri king of Ratanpur (v. 11). The next nine verses (12-20)
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¹ Drug District Gaȥetteer (1909), p. 47. This is referred to below as the Ratanpur MS.
² Jenkins' account of the contents of this inscription, which was based on the report of Aurangabadkar, is equally incorrect; for according to him 'the present inscription contains a list of nine Rājās in the order of succession from father to son, including the one by whose order the inscription was engraved.' Aurangabadkar's MS. mentions five of these, viȥ., Pṛithvīpāla, Brahmadēva, Rudradēva, Pṛithvīdēva, and Śrīdēva. The extant portion shows the names Pṛithvīpāla, Brahmadēva and Pṛithvīdēva only. the other names seem to be due to misreading; for they do not occur in the manuscript history of Ratanpur also. Further, Jenkins speaks of Pṛithvidēva as a fortunate prince who in his old age resigned his kingdom called Kōsaladēśa to his son. This is evidently an incorrect interpretation of verse 21 of the present inscription. What the verse really means is that Pṛithvīdēva, who is identical with the Kalachuri king Pṛithvīdēva II of Ratanpur, called Brahmadēva, to his capital, and entrusting the government of the kingdom to him, led a life free from care.
³ Hiralal read the date of the Amōdā plates of Jājalladēva II (below. No.99) as 912, but his reading of the third figure of it is probably incorrect in view of the date of the present inscription which belongs to the reign of his father Pṛithvīdēva II. See below, p. 529.