North Indian Inscriptions

MISCELLANEOUS INSCRIPTIONS

No. 115 ; PLATE XCV
SAHASPUR STATUE INSCRIPTION OF YASORAJA: (KALACHURI) YEAR934

THIS inscription was first brought to notice by Sir. Richard Jenkins in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV, p. 506 . It was subsequently noticed by Sir A. Cunningham, who gave an account of its contents and the Christian equivalent of its date together with a photozincograph in his Archaeological survey of India Reports, Vol. XVII, pp. 42-4, plate xxii. Its date was next examined by Dr. Kielhorn in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XVII, p. 217. The inscription is edited here for the first time from excellent ink impressions kindly supplied by Mr. M. A. Suboor of the Central Museum, Nagpur.

The record is incised on the pedestal of a statue, locally known as that of Sahasrārjuna or Sahasrabāhu, which lies under a tamarind tree near a tank at Sāhaspur, 12 miles to the south-west of Kawardhā, the chief town of a former feudatory state of the same name in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh.^¹ It consists of four short lines followed by four half lines on the left and two half lines on the right. It is an a good state of preservation. The average size of the letters is .5”. The characters are Nāgarī and the language Sanskrit. The only orthographical peculiarities, which call for notice, are the use of v for b in Valēr=, 1. I and of the palatal ś for the dental s in śūnōḥ, 1. 2.

In the first four lines the inscription describes Yaśōrāja whom the statue was intended to represent ; but the description is wholly conventional. The next four half lines on the left name his queen, two sons and one daughter

The date of the inscription is recorded in the two half lines on the right as the year 934 (expressed in decimal figures only), the fifteenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Kārttika, Wednesday.^² This date must evidently be referred to the Kalachuri era and regularly corresponds to Wednesday, the 13th October 1182 A.C.^³ On that day the fifteenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Kārttika in the expired Kalachuri year 934 ended 14 hours after mean sunrise.4

As stated before, Yasoraja was probably a feudatory of the Kalachuri kings of Ratanpur.

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¹ C. A. S. I. R., Vol. XVII, p. 43.
² Jenkins gave the date wrongly as ‘Kartik Shudi Panchami Roj Budhwar’. A. R., Vol. XV, p. 506. The inscribed tithi is 15, not 5 as pointed out by Cunningham. C. A. S. I. R., Vol. XVII, p. 42.
³ Cunningham’s statement (loc. cit., p. 43) that the 15th of Kārttika in 1183 A. C. was a Wednesday is incorrect ; for, in 1183 A.C. the aforementioned tithi fell on Tuesday, not on Wednesday.
⁴ According to Kielhorn’s calculations the tithi ended 13 h. 57 m. on that day.
⁵ From ink impressions.
⁶ The sense requires some participle like गत: in place of स्थित:
⁷ The correct reading would be दुष्टोपि, but it would not suit the metre.
⁸ Metre : Śārdūlavikrīḍita.
⁹ Read संवत्‌.