North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

No. 43 ; PLATE XLIV
GYĀRASPUR PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF TRAILOKYAVARMAN
(Fragmentary)

...THIS inscription which is engraved on a stone pillar was found by A. Cunningham in his tour in Bundelkhand and Mālwā in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and was noticed by him in the Archaeological Survey of India Reports, Volume X (for 1874-77), pp. 33 ff. and Plate XI. A brief account of the record was also subsequently given by the late M.B. Garde, in the Annual Report of the Archaeology Department of the former Gwalior State, for Saṁvat 1874 (1917 A.C.) ;[8] but the report is unfortunately not available in print. Finally, the inscription was edited by K.G. Krishnan, in the Epigraphia Indica, Volume XXXIII (for 1959-60), pages 93-94, with text in Roman characters, but without any facsimile. The record is edited here from the original stone which I personally examined in the Gwalior Museum and from an impression supplied by Dr. S. L. Katare.

...The pillar with the inscription on it is plain ; and it is stated that Cunningham found it built into a platform near a monument locally known as the Hiṇḍōlā Tōraṇa, at Gyāraspur, now in the Bāsōdā parganā of the Vidishā District of Madhya Pradesh. [9] It has no connection, whatsoever, with the platform ; and the exact spot where it was originally erected is not known ; but it is obvious that it could not have been brought from a distant place. The original height of the pillar cannot be known as its upper part is now lost. The extant portion, which too is irregularly broken, measures 48 cms. high and is 56 cms. broad at the bottom, showing two
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[1] The correct word is पुष्पवती as in pushpavatīm=api pavitrāṁ in the Kādambarī. This verse has the figure virōdhābhāsa by the double meanings of pushpavatī and madhuvratā.
[2] The reading is certain but it gives no meaning. If vidrāvaṇaṁ is intended, it gives the sense of ‘a song of his march for conquest which would put (his enemies) to flight’.
[3] The first of the letters in the brackets is deformed and the second appears as ga in the impression.
[4] The second akshara in this pāda is not clear. Before sa there is a horizontal short stroke and it is not known if it is intended for n. The meaning is not clear.
[5] Both these aksharas, along with the last two in this verse, are damaged, and their restoration is conjectural.
[6] The daṇḍas are adorned with top-strokes and placed near the mātrā of dau.
[7] Portions of this and the preceding verse are obliterated ; they are all lost on the stone, only leaving the marks of their existence before. The reading of the letter in the brackets is not certain. The upper curves of the mātrās of kīrtti do not appear to have been engraved.
[8] This reference is from Gwālior Rājya kē Abhilēkha (Hindi) by Pt. Harihar Nivas Dvivedi, p. 3, No. 11, where he mentions three inscriptions on the pillar.
[9] Gyāraspur is a place of archaeological interest and is about forty kilometres north-east of Vidisha, on a
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