North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

No. 41 ; PLATES XLI B & XLII
BHOPAL PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF MAHAKUMARA LAKSHMIVARMAN
(Undated)

...THIS inscription, which is engraved on three of the four faces of a stone pillar, was discovered by Dr. S. L. Katare, in February 1957, at Bhopāl, the capital of the former State of that name in Central India and now the chief city of the State of Madhya Pradesh. The same scholar also edited the record in the Journal of the Madhya Pradesh Historical Association, in its Volume Number 2 (for 1960), pages 3-8, with an illustration of the facsimile. The Plate published with the article, however, is very small and not to scale, and it does not show the impression very clearly. In view of the fact that the inscription throws welcome light on the history of the Paramāra Mahākumāra period, I requested the Superintending Archaeologist of the Central Circle, Archaeological Survey of India, at Bhopāl, to kindly prepare fresh impressions of the inscription and supply the same to me, which he readily did. From the same impressions the inscription is edited here, with my thankfulness to the Superintending Archaeologist.

...The pillar on which this record is incised is square in shape and is about 1.73 metres high. It is at present lying in the compound of a building which till very recently housed the office of the Chief Secretary to the Government of Madhya Pradesh and the General Administration Department at Bhopāl. The original find-spot of the pillar is not known ; it could not, however, have been brought from a place far away from Bhopāl. Fragments of some sulptures are also to be seen lying near about the pillar ; and viewing them all, I feel the same as Dr. Katare writes that some of them may have existed in a Museum at Bhopāl about 30-35 years before.

...The inscription, as stated above, is on three sides of the pillar and the fourth side is occupied by crude representations of Śiva-liṁga and Nandin, clearly indicating it to be a memorial pillar. As regards the inscription, it consists of fifteen lines-five lines on each of the three faces, covering a space of 29 by 15 cms., 26 by 14 cms. and 27 by 15 cms., respectively. The writing has suffered a good deal by exposure to weather and vandalism, as it would also appear. The first and the second sides are somewhat better preserved but the aksharas in the last four lines have now become altogether illegible. Besides this, the technical execution of the record also shows slovenliness here and to make out any sense from them, as will be known from the text that follows.

...The size of the letters varies from 1.5 to 2 cms. The characters are Nāgarī of the twelfth century A.C. The initial a has assumed its modern form, as in Ajayapāla, 1. 5 ; j is in a transitional stage, its old form being noticed in virājamāna, 1. 2, and the advanced form, which does not differ from that of the modern, in jaya, 1. 1 ; ch shows a triangular loop, cf. Drōṇāchārya, 1.4 ; the left limb of dh is horned, see dhalā-, 1. 14 ; and r, which is engraved as a vertical with a wedge attached to its middle on the left and in some other instances in its advanced form so as to be a precursor of the modern, as in parikriyā-virājamāna, 1. 2. It occasionally also shows a ch-like loop, see -riyaṁ=Rāma-, 1. 11. Thus on palaeographical grounds the record may be assigned to the twelfth century A.C

...The language of the inscription is Sanskrit and it is entirely in prose. As regards orthography, we may point out that (1) the sign for v is employed throughout to denote b, e.g. in saṁdatya, 1. 8 ; (2) only in one instance, viz., yuddhēsv=ari, 1. 10, the dental sibilant is employed for the lingual; (3) a consonant following r is generally doubled, see Tējōvarmmadēva, 1.7 ; and lastly, (4) the pṛishṭha-mātrā is engraved to denote the medial ē and one of the components of the medial ō, as in the same instance.

... The inscription belongs to the time of the Paramāra Mahākumāra Lakshmivarmadēva, who had obtained the privilege of the pañchamahāśabdas and who enjoyed a high position (11. 2-3), and thus he is obviously the same as the homonymous king, a son Yaśōvarman and a brother of Jayavarman, as we have seen while editing the preceding inscription. The object of the inscription is to record that a feudatory of Lakshmīvarman, named Vijayasiṁha, gained

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