North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

UDAIPUR STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF DEVAPALA

No. 52 ; PLATE LI
UDAIPUR STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF DĒVAPĀLA
[Vikrama] Year 1286

...THIS inscription was published, without a lithograph, by F. Kielhorn, in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XVIII, p. 342, and again with a partial transcript thereof, in its Vol. XX, p. 83., No. 2. It was subsequently noticed by M.B. Garde in the Annual Administrative. Report of the Department of Archaeology of the (former) Gwālior State, for the year ending V.S. 1974 (1917-18 A.C.) [8] , and was also included by D.R. Bhandarkar in his List of Inscriptions (No. 483). It is edited here from an estampage supplied by the Chief Epigraphist. [9]

... The record is incised on the lower part of a pillar on the proper right side of the eastern entrance of the Śiva temple at Udaipur in the Bāsōdā tehsīl of the Vidishā (Bhilsā) District of Madhya Pradesh. It consists of fourteen lines of writing, covering an area about 38.8 cms. in length and about 50.8 cms. in height. The height of the individual letters ranges between 2.5 and 3 cms. They are sparsely written, and the mechanical execution betrays want of skill. The inscription is in a good state of preservation, except that the figure showing the date has peeled off. [10] The stone also shows a vertical crack on the proper right side of 11. 2-12, but it does not affect the writing.

...The characters belong to the Nāgarī alphabet of the 13th century A.C. Worthy of note is the old form of the vowel i in ity-, 1. 12, consisting of two loops placed horizontally and subscribed by the sign of the medial u ; the slightly varying formation of r in –śvara and raja
__________________________________________________________

[1] As often remarked above, this word is more often used in Mālwā, even today, in the sense of dharmadāya, and it is very often found used in the grants of the Paramāras, for example, in Nos.9-11, above.
[2] This akshara has a redundant anusvāra above.
[3] Read विलोप्या : ।२७। इति.
[4] Read शु दि.
[5] Read दूतकः, that is, royal messenger.
[6] The significance of this mark is not known to me. It may be a letter, denoting the name of the messenger. Or it may be an abbreviation of mukh-ādēśaḥ (the order of the king).
[7] The punctuation mark is redundant.
[8] Unpublished. The reference here is to H.N. Dvivedi’s List. No. 102.
[9] His No. C-1660 of 1961-62. Subsequently. I also had an occasion to study the
original, in situ, and compare the text.
[10] See n. on the corresponding portion of the text below.

Home Page