North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR

RATANPUR STONE INSCRIPTION PRITHVIDEVA II: YEAR 1297

(V. 12) This son of him (i.e., of Ratnadēva II), the king Pṛithvīdēva (II) of great and resplendent valour, rules the earth with great political wisdom.

(V.13) There was a holy Brāhmaṇa named Hari, the ocean of the rivers, namely, the Vēdas. From him was born (a son) named Rihila who was like a wish-fulfilling tree to suppliants.

(V. 14) From him was born (a son) named Gōpāla, an ornament of the orb of the earth, who, being occupied with the study of the Vēdas, Smṛitis (and) Purāṇas, was like Druhiṇa (Brahmā).

(V. 15-16) On the occasion of a Saṅkrānti, (the king) donated a village named Gōṭhadā in the Sāmanta-maṇḍala^¹ to the illustrious Gōpālaśarman of the Ālavāyana^² gōtra with the three pravaras Vasisṭha, Maitrāvaruṇa and Kauṇḍinya, after having washed the pair of his lotus-like feet.
(Here follow nine benedictive and imprecatory verses.)

(V. 26) There lived here the wise and illustrious Kīrtidhara who was the moon which made the night-lotuses of the Vāstavya family bloom, and who owned the village named Jaḍēra. His learned son Vatsarāja wrote (on these plates of) copper. Engraved by Chāndārka.^³ (In) the year 1000 (?) (900) on Thursday, the ––^⁴ (lunar) day of the bright (fortnight) of Bhādrapada.

Seal
The King, the illustrious P?ithvideva.

No. 93; PLATE LXXVI
RATANPUR STONE INSCRIPTION OF PRITHVIDEVA II: (VIKRAMA) YEAR 1207.

THIS inscription is incised on a slab of polished black stone which is said to have been discovered within the fort of Ratanpur^⁵ and is now deposited in the Central Museum, Nagpur. The inscription was referred to by Sir Alexander Cunningham's Assistant, Mr. Beglar in the Archæological Survey of India Reports, Vol. VII (1873-74), p. 215. It has been edited before, first by Dr. Rajendralal Mitra in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XXXII, pp. 277-87, and again by Dr. Kielhorn in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. 1, pp. 45 ff. The record is edited here from the original stone.

'The inscription consists of 24 lines. The writing originally covered a space of about 2' 5½” broad by I' I” high; at present, a portion of the proper left side, all the way down, and the lower right corner of the stone are broken away, so that altogether about ninety aksharas are missing.'^⁶The stone evidently was less injured when Dr. Rajendralal's rubbing was taken. The final aksharas, again, in 11.10, 14, 17 and 19 of Dr. Kielhorn's transcript have been broken away since estampages were supplied to him. Except for one or two aksharas, here and there, which are slightly damaged, and a crack which cuts across 11.14-24, the extant portion of the record is well-preserved. The size of the letters is about .4”. The characters are Nāgarī. The medial u appears in some cases as a curve turned
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¹ See above, page 482, note 2.
² Loc. cit., n. 1.
³ Loc . cit., n. 9.
⁴ The figure of the tithi has not been engraved.
⁵The record may have been put up originally at Sāmbā where the temple of Śiva, mentioned in it,
was erected. Later on, it seems to have been removed to the fort at Ratanpur where it was found by Cunningham's Assistant, Beglar. See his A. S. I. R., Vol. VII, p. 215.
⁶ Ep. Ind., Vol. 1, p. 45.