North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

KADAMBAPADRAKA GRANT OF NARAVARMAN

though it is full scribal errors. Occasionally, the arbitrary touch of the chisel has transformed the exact shape of letters which are to be read correctly only by the context, as will be known from foot-notes appended to the text ; and that the limbs of some of the letters are occasionally omitted in the process of engraving is to be seen from corrections made in the text itself.

...To note the palaeographical peculiarities of the writing, we find that the letter ṅ, which occurs only once in -ṅkur-ākṛitiṃ, 1. 1, is devoid of its dot ; the letter j in Mahārāja, 1.2, shows its form advanced than the others ; the letter dh shows a transitional stage ; it exactly resembles v in –dhirāja, 1. 3, has a horn on the left limb but no top-stroke, as in madhurō, 1. 8 and vidhēyaiḥ, 1. 20, and no horn but the top-stroke on the first limb, as in vasudhā, 1.8 and Dhārā- Dhārā-, 1. 9, where the two verticals are joined by a bar in middle. Ch which is occasionally in its developed from, as in charāchara, 1.7 and chakrāgra, 1. 9, continues to show its older from resembling v, as in jayō’bhyudayaś=cha, 1. 1. Sometimes no distinction is made in carving t, n and bh ; cf. pradantā for pradattā, 1. 19, sēnu for sētu, 1. 25, nūta for bhūta, 1. 17 and nūyō for bhūyō, 1. 25. The letter ṇ often resembles l, as in parvvaṇi, 1. 17, tṛiṇa, 1. 18 and nṛipāṇāṃ, 1. 25. The vertical and the slanting strokes forming d are sometimes joined in the middle so as to make the letter appear to be v, e.g. in jayō’bhyudayaś =cha, 1. 1 and udāhṛitaṁ, 1.27 ; and an example of the reverse is to be seen in vibhartti appearing as didhartti in 1. 1.

... The language is Sanskrit ; and, with the exception of two verses in the beginning, two in the middle and five imprecatory stanzas at the end, the record is composed in prose. With reference to orthography, we may note that (1) the letter v denotes b as well ; (2) a consonant following and occasionally preceding r is doubled, e.g. in sarggāya, 1. 1, chandrārkkārnṇava, 11. 10-11, and māttra, 1. 8 ; (3) excepting perhaps two instances, viz., Āsādharāya, 1. 12 and vaṁsa, 1. 21, the sibilants are correctly used throughout ; (4) nasals too are correctly used, with a very few exceptions, but the final m is generally wrongly changed to an anusvāra at the end of a sentence or a hemistich of a verse ; (5) the midial dipthongs are shown by the pṛishṙṭha-mātrās, excepting those in the first line on each plate and certain others, e.g. in yānē, 1.9, dvivēda, 1. 12, vilōpyāḥ, 1. 27 and kēśavaḥ, 1. 28, but in case of the medial ai one of the mātrās appears as pṛishṭha- and the other as ūrdhva-, as in śataika-, 1. 14.

...The inscription opens with the customary short sentence Śrīr = jayō’bhyudayaś =cha (wealth, victory and prosperity), followed by two verses which are generally to be found at the beginning of a Paramāra grant ; the first of these verses eulogises Vyōmakēśa and the second invokes the blessings of Smarārāti. It then proceeds to trace the genealogy of the ruling house of the Paramāras, beginning it from the Paramabhaṭṭāraka, Mahārājādhirāja, and Paramēśvara Sindhurāja, his successor P.M.P. Bhōjadēva, his successor Udayāditya and his successor Naravarman (11. 2-5). This portion is dentical with the corresponding portion of the previous grant. The object of the record is to register the grant of certain pieces of land given on different. occasions to a Brāhmaṇa named dvivēda-Āsā(śā)dhara, son of dīkshita Dēvaśarman and grandson of dvivēda Nārāyaṇa, who had hailed from Sṛiṅgapura in Madhyadeśa, who was a student of Mādhyandina śākhā and whose gōtra was Kātyāyana, with three pravaras, viz. Kātyāyana, Kapila and Viśvāmitra. We are then told in 11. 13-14 that Naravarman himself donated twenty nivartanas of land, measuring it by a daṇḍa containing ninty-six parvas, [1] to this Brāhmaṇa on the 12th day of the bright half of Māgha in the year 1162, corresponding to Thursday, the 3rd February, 1110 A.C., when the charter was issued. The document in 11. 14-18) also refers to previous grants of twenty halas of land, as shown below, in a tabular form :

... (a) Ten halas donated by the Mahāmaṇḍalīka Rājya(ja)dēva on the 15th day of the bright half of
.................Kārttika in the year 1154.
....(b) Four halas by his wife, [2] the illustrious Mahādēvī (probably on the same date?).
....(c) Six halas by the king Naravarman himself, on the 15th day of the bright half of Pausha in the year
.................1159, on the occasion of Bhātaraprana(?)-parvan. [3]
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[1] For details in this respect, see the preceding grant, No. 31.
[2] The word employed here is vadhū, which is translated by Banerji as ‘daughter-in-law’. But I feel agreeing with Chakravarti, who, while revising the article, observes that it is probably to be taken in the sense of ‘wife’. See Ep. Ind. Vol. XX, p. 105, n. 5.
[3] For this expression, see n. on the corresponding portion in the text below.

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