North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

Second Plate

[ No. 35 ; PLATE XXXVII
A JAIN INSCRIPTION FROM SHĒRGAḌH
[ Vikrama ] Year 1191

...THIS inscription was discovered in 1953 by Dr. D. C. Sircar, Government Epigraphist, who also edited it, with transcript in Roman characters and a facsimile, in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXXI, pp. 81 ff. From the same facsimile the record is edited here.

... The inscription is stated to have been found on the pedestal below the central figure of a group of three images of Jain Tīrthaṅkaras in a small temple outside the fort of Shērgaḍh, a town in ruins in the Atrū tehsīl of the Kōṭā District in Rājasthān. [5] The figure of the Tīrthaṅkara bearing it represents Kuntalanātha, the other two being the images of Śāntinātha and Aranātha. The inscription consists of 8 lines of writing, which covers a space about 45 cms. broad by 13 cms. high. It is not well preserved and some of the letters in 11. 1-3 are entirely lost. The size of the letters is about 1 cm., but this uniformity is not maintained throughout the record. The mechanical execution was in a slipshod way, e.g., the letter v in vipula-, 1. 1, is cut as ch and as y in –vardhana, 1. 3; the sign of mātrā in kula- is only a stroke and tanaya is engraved as tnaya, both in 1. 2; and t in saṁvat, 1. 7, is written as tu. Signs of the anusvāra and mātrās are occasionally omitted, and there are mistakes of grammar, the most glaring of which is ratna-trayaḥ kāritaḥ for ratna-trayaṁ kāritaṁ in 1. 4.

... Except for the portion bearing the date in the end, the record is composed in verses, which are all marked by numbers 1 to 5. It is a sectarian record, and its object is to mention the installation of three images (ratna-traya) at the base of (the hill-fort of) Kōśa-vardhana, by one
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[1] What is intended is प्रदत्ता । तन्मत्वा, but the sign of punctuation is joined to the top-stroke of the following letter and thus it appears as tē.
[2] The first two aksharas in this are not well engraved.
[3] The subscript is very faint in the impression as it was lightly engraved.
[4] That is, dūtaka.
[5] For the details of this place, see above, No. 23.
[6] Dr. Sircar has also noted that the early images of these three Tīrthaṅkaras are rather rare. See op. cit., p. 84, n.

................CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM
VOL.VII .........................................................................PLATE XXXVI
KADAMBBAPADRAKA GRANT OF NARAVARMAN: )VIKRAMA) YEAR 1167

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