North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF CHANDRAVATI

BĀMANWĀRJI STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF DHĀRĀVARSHA

No. 72 ; PLATE LXXIII –B
BĀMAṆWĀRJĪ STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF DHĀRĀVARSHA
[ Vikrama] Year 124[9]

...THIS inscription was discovered in 1917, by V. S. Sukthankar, the Assistant Superintendent in the Western Circle of the Archaeological Survey of India, He found the record engraved in the south-west corner of the enclosure of a Śiva temple at Bāmaṇwārjī, a tiny hamlet lying about 15 kms. south-east of Sirōhī, the principal town of a tehsīl and district in south-west Rājasthān. The village is situated at the foot of a small hillock which lies along the main road from Sirōhī to Piṇḍwāḍā, and with some Jaina temples standing there, it is a Jaina tīrtha.

... The inscription was very briefly noticed in the Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of the Western Circle, ending March, 1917, on p. 63. At my request, the Superintending Archaeologist of the Western Circle, very kindly prepared for me a set of impressions, and from the same the record is edited here. I have also compared the text in my visit to the place, sub- sequently.

... The inscription contains five lines. The writing covers a space 34.5 cms. broad and 18 cms. high. The size of the individual letters is between 2 and 2.5 cms. They are sparsely written. The technical execution is crude and the inscription has suffered not only from the effects of weather but also from a rough handling. The stone appears to have been clipped at the edges, probably to give it a suitable size for setting; and as Sukthankar has already remarked, “in places the hollows have been filled in with cement.” Some of the letters are no doubt distinct here and there, but they do not make-a coherent sense.

... The language is Sanskrit, teeming with local elements; and nothing is worth noting from the point of view of palaeography or orthography, The record is all prose. The year of the inscription, as given in numerical figures only and without recording any further details, is 1249. The unit figure, which is rather indistinct and also mutilated, has been adopted here from Sukthankar’s reading, in whose time the record and particularly this figure may have been better preserved. Taking the year as expired of the Vikrama era, the corresponding Christian year is 1192 A.C. Fortunately the letters Śrī-Dhārāvarsha-saṁrājē, along with some others, are distinct, though faintly, from which we can know that the record refers itself to the reign of Dhārāvarsha ; and from the provenance of the inscription it is evident that he is the same king who flourished in the junior branch of the Paramāra house of Ābū, whose known dates range from V.S. 1220 to 1276. [1] i.e., from 1163 to 1219 A.C. The present record thus supplies an intermediate date.

...The purpose of the inscription cannot be clearly made out; however, from the expression bhūm =īha maṁtavyā in 11. 3-4, it appears to have recorded some gift to the temple in the wall of which the inscribed slab was found. or to some other temple in its vicinity from where it was possibly brought and set here, as does not appear to have been altogether impossible.

... Bāṁbhaṇavāḍa-grāma mentioned in 11. 1-2 is evidently the village of Bāmaṇwārjī where the inscription was found.

...Only the first and a part of line 2 can be read with certainty. It is as follows : (along with some other letters)-

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[1] See Nos. 67 and 197 respectively.
[2] Expressed by a symbol which is damaged.
[3] The reading of most of the aksharas is only conjectural, but up to the name of the place in 1. 2 it is certain.

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