North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

No. 97; PLATE LXXIX
MALLAR STONE INSCRIPTION OF JAJALLADEVA II : (KALACHURI) YEAR 919

THIS inscription is on a black stone which is said to have been found at Mallār^¹ a village 16 miles south-west of Bilaspur in the tahsil and district of Bilaspur in Madhya Pradesh. The inscription has been edited before with a translation, but without a lithograph, by Dr. Kielhorn in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I, pp. 39 ff. It is edited here from the original stone which is preserved in the Central Museum, Nagpur.

The record consists of 28 lines. The inscribed surface measures 2’ 4½” broad by 1’ 6½” high. The stone is broken at the upper and lower proper right corners so that the first four aksharas in the first line have been lost and the first three aksharas in the last line have been partially damaged. Besides these, one or two aksharas have suffered here and there. Otherwise, the record is in a state of perfect preservation. The characters are Nāgarī. They closely resemble those of the Ratanpur stone inscription dated V. 1207^² which, as shown below, was written by the same scribe. The language is Sanskrit. Except for [ōṁ namaḥ] Śivāya in the beginning and the date at the end, the record is metrically composed throughout. It consists of 26 verses, all of which are numbered. The present inscription has several ideas in common with the afore-mentioned Ratanpur stone inscription. For instance verses 3, 8, 12, 20 and 22 of the present inscription are evidently composed in limitation of verses 3, 7, 8, 23 and 25 of the Ratanpur record.^³ Verse 25, again, which describes the scribe Kumārapala, occurs in the Shēorinārāyaṇ inscription^⁴ of Āmaṇadēva which also belongs to the reign of Jājalladēva II. The orthography shows the usual substitution of v for b and the confusion of the dental and palatal sibilants. Besides these, we may note that y is written for j in -yushām=in 1.7 and mvra for mra in-jaṭ-āmvar-, 1.I; n is wrongly used for the anusvāra in Mīmānsā-, 1.16 and Rāghv-ānhri-, 1. 26, and for the palatal nasal in -bhūtin=cha, 1.13.

The inscription refers itself to the regin of Jājalladēva II of the Kalachuri Dynasty of Ratanpur. The object of it is to record the construction, at Mallār, of a temple of Śiva under the name of Kēdāra by a Brāhmaṇa named Sōmaraja. It is dated in the year 919 (expressed in decimal figures only) of an unspecified era. The date must, of course, be referred to the Kalachuri era. The year, if expired, would correspond to 1167-68 A.C. It does not admit of verification for want of the necessary details.

After two maṅgala-ślōkas invoking the blessings of Śiva and Gaṇapati, the inscription describes Ratnadēva as 'a fierce cloud which extinguished the continuously raging flames of the spreading mighty fire of the valour of the king Chōḍagaṅga.' this plainly refers to the victory of Ratanadēva II over Anantavarman-Chōḍagaṅga, the mighty king of Kaliṇga.^⁵We are next told that Ratnadēva (II) had a son named Pṛithvīdēva (II),
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¹ The name is variously spelt as Mallār in the Maps, Malbār in the List of the Villages of the Bilāspur District and as Mallāla in the present inscription. I have chosen Mallār as it approximates Mallāla.
² Above, No. 93.
³ Dr. Keilhorn, who first observed this similarity, thought that Dēvagaṇa, the author of the Ratanpur inscription, imitated the composition of his father Ratnasiṁha; for the Ratanpur inscripton eulogizes five of the grandchildren of Ratnasiṁha. He therefore read the date of that inscription as (Vikrama) 1247. That the real date is (Vikrama) 1207 has already been shown; see above, p. 485. The Ratanpur inscription was therefore composed about 18 years before the present one. Consequently, Ratnasiṁha himself was the imitator. This can also be inferred from the wording of v. 22 of the present inscription. See below, p-518,n. 2.
⁴ See No. 98, below. It may be noted that it is dated in the same Kalachuri year as the present inscription.
⁵ See above, p. 484