North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

SHEORINARAYAN PLATES OF RATNADEVA II : YEAR 878

No. 78
On a wall of the maṇḍapa, south-east corner.
श्रीम: ज्‍जाजल्लदेवकीर्त्तीरीम:¹।

No. 79
On the same wall of the maṇḍapa, in the same corner.
श्रीम: ज्‍जाजल्लदेव[की]-¹ [।*]

No. 80
On a stone built into the re-built door-way on the north of the maṇḍapa.
[श्री*]म: ज्‍जाजल्लदेवकीर्त्तीरीम:¹ [।*]
Translation—These are thē kīrtis² (meritorious works) of the illustrious Jājalla- dēva (I).

No. 81
On a pilaster inserted to support a broken beam on the south side of the shrine
door-way.
सिद्धि:³ [।*] [श्रीमज्‍जाजल्लदे⁴]व⁵स्यकीर्त्तिरियम्‌॥
Translation—Success ! This is the kīrti (meritorious works) of the illustrious Jājalladēva (I).

No. 82 ; PLATE LXVI
SHEORINARAYAN PLATES OF RATNADEVA II: (KALACHURI) YEAR 878

THESE plates were found in the possession of Pandit Ramachandra Trivedi, the head priest of the main temple at Shēorinārāyaṇ, well-known place of pilgrimage on the left bank of the Mahānadī, 38 miles south-east of Bilaspur in the Jānjgir tahsil of the Bilaspur District in Madhya Pradesh. They were first brought to notice by Pandit Lochan Prasad Pandeya of Balpur, who has edited them with lithographs, but without a translation, in the Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. IV, pp. 31-34. I edit the record here from the original plates which were kindly procured for me by the Curator or the Central Museum, Nagpur.

They are a set of two copper-plates held together by a ring. 3” thick, the central portion of which is flattened into a round seal, 2.4” in diameter. The ring was not cut when the plates reached me. The seal contains the legend Mahārāṇaka-śrīmad Ratnadēvaḥ, inscribed in two lines. Each plate measures 9.5” broad, 5.9” high and .I” thick and is inscribed on one side only. There are twenty-six lines in all, thirteen being inscribed on each plate. The letters are deeply engraved, but not well-formed. Their size They are a set of two copper-plates held together by a ring. 3” thick, the central portion of which is flattened into a round seal, 2.4” in diameter. The ring was not cut when the plates reached me. The seal contains the legend Mahārāṇaka-śrīmad-Ratnadēvaḥ, inscribed in two lines. Each plate measures 9.5” broad, 5.9” high and .I” thick and is inscribed on one side only. There are twenty-six lines in all, thirteen being inscribed on each plate. The letters are deeply engraved, but not well-formed. Their size is .25.”

The characters are Nāgarī. The letters a, ṇ, bh, ś and s show transitional forms; see, e. g., a in api, 1.23 and āsīt=, 1.6; ṇ in -pūrṇa-pāṇiḥ, 1.19; bh in =bhūbhṛitām=, 1.4 and bhuvaḥ,
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¹Read श्रीमज्जाजल्लदेवकीर्त्तय इमा: ।
²As the repairs were done in several places, the plural number of kirti has been used.
³Expressed by a symbol.
⁴The aksharas in the bracket are partly damaged.
⁵The akshara व, which was at first omitted, is written below the line.