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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
MISCELLANEOUS INSCRIPTIONS No 114; PLATE XCIV THIS inscription was discovered by Mr. H. Cousens in 1904. It has been noticed before, first by Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar in the progress Report of the Archæological Survey of Western India for 1903-4, p. 48, and subsequently by Rai Bahadur Hiralal in his Inscriptions in the Central Provinces and Berar.¹ It is edited here for the first time from the original stone and its ink impressions taken under my direction. The inscription is incised on a slab of black stone measuring 2' 4½" broad and 1' 6½" high. which in I904 Mr Cousens found placed in front of an old brick temple of Mahāprabhu at Pujāripāli, a village 22 miles north by east of Sāraṅgarh, the chief town of a former feudatory State of the same name in the Chhattisgarh Division of Madhya Pradesh. . The stone is now deposited in the Raipur Museum. The writing seems to have originally covered a space measuring 2' 2'' broad by 1' 4'' high, but almost the whole of the first line and from one to fifteen aksharas on either end in ll. 2-8 have been lost owing to the breaking away of the top and the right and left upper corners of the stone. Besides, the writing has been almost completely effaced in the middle of 11. 8-20. The characters are of the Nāgarī alphabet. Prishthamātrās are generally used to denote medial diphthongs; the left limbs of kh and dh are fully developed; ś and bh appear throughout in their modern forms; ṅ shows a dot as in raṇ-āṅgaṇē, 1. 3; the upper loop of th is open on the left,as in Mārkkaṁḍēyō=tha, 1.24, while as the second member of the conjunct sth, it is placed vertically and not on its side. These peculiarities of the letters indicate that the inscription does not probably date before the 12th century A. C. The language is Sanskrit. The whole of the preserved portion, except a sentence in 1. 3 and another in 1. 25 naming the scribe and the engraver, is in verse. The verses, all of which appear to have been numbered, total 46.²
The inscription is one of a king named Gōpāladēva. The object of it apparently is to record the charitable deeds of Gōpāladēva, especially the construction of the temple where it was put up. The first line, which is almost completely mutilated, contains the names of Brahmā,
vishṇu and Mahēśvara, joined in a compound. In most of the following verses up to
verse 37, the first half is devoted to the description of a goddess, while the second states
how Gōpāla showed his devotion to her, or what favours she conferred on him. The
goddess is named variously as Vaishṇavi, Vārāhī, Nārasiṁhī, Aindrī, Chāmuṇḍā and so
forth³ and her form, weapons, and vehicle are described in consonance with her epithet.
In verse 19 she is said to have been pleased with Gōpāla. She granted him a boon
that he would attain success in all his affairs and acquire all knowledge (v. 24). Gōpāla
again praised her, and by virtue of repeating her mantra ten million times Gōpāla got a
boon from her that he would have matchless strength and prowess. Verses 35-37
describe a fierce battle in which Gōpāla apparently became victorious. Verses 38-40 state
that at Kēdāra, Prayāga, Pushkara, Purushōttama and Bhīmēśvara, on the Narmadā,
at Gōpālapura, Vārāṇasī, Prabhāsa, the junction of the Gaṅgā with the sea, Vairāgyamaṭha Śauripura, and the Pēḍarā village, the kīrti of Gōpāla shines like the autumnal 1 First ed, (1916), pp. 169 ff; second ed. (1932) pp. 181 ff.
VOL. IV. PLATE XCIII.
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