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North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF RATANPUR RATANPUR STONE INSCRIPTION OF PRITHVIDEVA II : YEAR 910 TRANSLATION Success ! Ōṁ! Adoration to Brahman! (Verse 11) From him was born Pṛithvideva (II) as a cub is from a lion; who, having the strong body of a lion, destroyed his enemies like a troop of elephants. (V. 12) In the gōtra of Chandrātrēya, with the three pravaras Chandra, Atri and Spāvana¹, there was an excellent Brāhmaṇa bearing the name Mihirasvāmin. (V. 13) He had a son named Dēvaśarman, most proficient in policy. He too had two we-known sons Sīlaṇa and Pīthana. (V. 14) (Their) younger (brother) was Lakaṇa as Lakshmaṇa was of Rāma. All of them were religious-minded and high-souled, and were fond of gods and Brāhmaṇas. (V. 15) To them this village Buḍubuḍū in the Madhya-maṇḍala recorded in (this) copper-charter (was granted) by the king on the akshaya-tṛitīyā. (Here follow twelve benedictive and imprecatory verses.) (V. 28) There lived here the wise and illustrious Kīrtidhara, the moon which made the night-lotuses of the Vāstavya family bloom, (and) who owned the village named Jaḍēra. His learned son, known as the illustrious Vatsarāja, wrote (on these plates of ) copper. (Line 36) Engraved by Chāndārka. (In) the year 905, on Tuesday, the sixth (lunar) day of the bright (fortnight) of Āśvina.
Seal No. 95 ; (No PLATE) THIS inscription was first brought to notice by Sir A. Cunningham who gave a transcript of its date accompanied by a photozincograph of the corresponding portion of the record in his Archæological Survey of India Reports, Vol. XVII (1881-82), p.76 and pl. xx. The record was subsequently noticed very briefly by Rai Bahadur Hiralal with the remark that 'it is fragmentary and is almost wholly effaced'.² It is edited here for the first time from the original stone which is now deposited in the Central Museum, Nagpur.? The inscription is incised on a slab of black stone which is said to have
been found at Ratanpur in the Bilaspur District of Madhya Pradesh. It is fragmentary. The extant portion, which covers a space 2' I'' broad and I' 6½'' high, contains
twenty-eight lines. About three lines containing two verses and a portion of the third
have been broken away from the top, but nothing has been lost from the sides and the bottom
of the stone. The inscription has, however, been almost completely obliterated on the
middle of the surface of the stone, only about half a dozen aksharas on either side being
still legible in lines 3-23. The preserved portion shows that the present record had many
verses in common with three other inscriptions,⁴ but as these latter also are fragmentary,
they do not afford much help in the restoration of the lost aksharas.
1 Rather, Pāvana (fire). See above, p. 477, n. 8.
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