North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

EULOGY OF SUN-GOD COMPOSED BY CHHITTAPA

Sircar edited the inscription in the Epigraphia Indica, Volume XXX (for 1953-54), pages 215 ff., giving his reading of the text in Roman characters, on page 219, with a facsimile facing the same page. The scholarly world is indebted to Dr. Sircar for bringing out the importance of the inscription, which is really significant in the history of Sanskrit literature, as will be shown below, and a composition of a Mahākavi-chakravartin of the name of Chhittapa= [1] who is otherwise known ; but this beautiful composition of his would have, of course, remained unknown for ever at least for some years to come. But Dr. Sircar, though he had an opportunity to inspect the original stone in the open air Museum at Vidishā, could not naturally afford more time there and had to prepare the text from the impressions taken by him. The stone has deplorably suffered from long exposure to weather, and a number of the aksharas being abraded, the text prepared by him needs some amendments to be made ; and occasionally it has some lacunae, besides those letters which are partially preserved in vv. 3-5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 19, 21 and 23, as Dr. Sircar himself has pointed out. This aroused my curiosity to prepare the text from the original stone which is now preserved in the Archaeological Museum at Gwālior where it was transported in 1956-57 ; and a patient examination of the same has enabled me to prepare the subjoined transcript, from which the inscription is edited here. [2]

...The inscription is on a loose slab of stone, as stated above, measuring 98.5 cms. broad (at the top) and 54 cms. high. The stone is 5.5 cms. thick It is broken at the top and the left side. The writing, which occupies its upper part, covers an area measuring 96.5 cms. in length and 28 cms. in height. The space below it is left vacant. The length of the last line is 34 cms. On the left side the stone is broken, as stated above, from top to bottom, losing, in some cases, 3.4 and in others, one or two more of the letters. Whether one or more lines have been lost at the top cannot be known ; and for the sake of convenience, the existing line has been regarded here as line 1. I have also restored conjecturally the letters lost on the left, as suggested by the context ; but it is after all a conjecture. The height of an individual letter is from 2 to 3 cms. They are boldly and regularly drawn. The existing portion contains 12 lines.

...The characters are Nāgarī of about eleventh centuary A.C. Worth noting among the forms of letters is that of the initial i, occurring only once in inaḥ, 1. 11, which has a fine tail of the first of the loops and a hook on the second. The loop of the consonant ch is triangular, and it begins with a horizontal stroke and can thus be distinguished from v ; cf. yāchatē, 1.3 ; t is sometimes confounded with v, which is the engraver’s error, see gīyatē , 1. 4 ; th in its full form differs from its subscript, as in vikatthanōrthēna, 1.6 ; the left limb of dh is surmounted by a horn but the letter is devoid of its top-stroke, cf. tōyadhēḥ, 1. 4 ; the subscript r is marked complete with its superscript drawn half, cf. pratīchyāḥ and dravaḥ, both in 1. 5, and prabhā tāya, 1. 7 ; and the loop beginning the letter ś is occasionally so marked as to make it appear as s, cf. kauśalaṁ, 1. 2. Some of these peculiarities and particularly the last one are to be seen also in the Dēwās grant of Naravarman. [3]

... The language is Sanskrit, which is generally correct ; and excepting the last portion showing the name of the poet and the person at whose instance it was composed, the whole inscription is in verse. The extant portion has in all 23 verses which are all in the anushṭubh metre. They are not numbered. The orthography does not call for any special remark ; the sign for v is throughout used to denote b as well, for which cf. śavdēna, 1.6 ; a class-consonant is generally doubled after r, as in iē=rchchiḥ, 1. 5 ; anusvāra is used in place of a class-nasal and even at the end of a hemistich ; and the medial dipthongs are denoted both by the pṛishṭha- and the ūrdhvamātrās, the former of which is often curved or shows a loop at its end, as in kauśalaṁ, 1. 3 and ino-, 1. 11.

... The inscription contains a eulogy (stuti, as the word occurs in v. 23). All the verses are addressed to the Sun-deity, each being complete in itself. Before proceeding to give the import
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[1] And not Dvittapa, or Dvittaya, as we find in the Report of the Gwalior State Archaeological Department (op. cit).
[2] I examined the stone for the first time in August 1968. and making a few amendments in Dr. Sircar’s reading, I contributed a paper to the Archaeology Section of the Oriental Conference. Vārāṇasī. For pre- paring the subjoined transcript I had a second opportunity in October, 1969. In the transcript given here, I have also tried to fill in gaps in the lost portion of the inscription : but they are all based on conjecture, as I have stated.
[3] Above, No. 30.

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