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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA
No. 54 ; PLATE LIII ...THE stone bearing this inscription was brought to notice as early as in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, by Alexander Cunningham, who published a brief and in some respect incorrect account of it, with a transcript of the first four lines but without a lithograph, in the Archaeological Survey of india Reports, Vol. X (for 1874-75 and 1876-77), p. 31. [1] The record was also referred to by F. Kielhorn in connection with the examination of the dates of the Vikrama era in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XX, p. 84 ; and subsequently it was mentioned by R.B. Hiralal in his Inscriptions of C.P. and Berar, [2] where he stated that the whereabouts of the stone were unknown; and I too failed to succeed in my search in my search of it some fifteen years before. The existence of the stone, however, was brought to my notice by Prof. K.D. Vajpeyi of the Saugor University, who removed it to the Archaeological Museum of his Department and who also favoured me with a set of inked impressions of the inscription. At my own request, the Chief Epigraphist of the Archaeological Survey of India also obliged me with a fresh impression of the record, and I had also the good fortune to visit saugor (Sāgar) and inspect the stone bearing it. On the basis of all this material the record is edited here for the first time. ...The inscription is incised on a dark pinkish stone-slab, which was found by Cunningham at Rāhatgaḍh, a hill-fort about 40 kms. west-southwest of Saugor (also spelt as Sāgar), the principal town of a district of that name in Madhya Pradesh. Cunningham did not mention the exact place of the find, but it appears to have been the Bādal Mahal which he described immediately before. The stone measures 91 cms. broad, 66 cms. high and 9 cms. thick, and a fragment of it (obliquely measuring 37 cms.) has been lost at the upper proper left corner. On the proper right corner at the top it has an elliptical gauge, showing its major and minor axes measuring 11 and 5 cms. respectively, and this shows that the slab was originally fixed on some projection. The mortise, which may be presumed to have existed on the corresponding left corner also, was lost in the missing portion of the slab, as stated above. On the proper right top, a portion of border is still visible, indicating that a broad border originally existed on all the four sides of the slab.
... The inscription consists of 14 lines of writing which covers a space 67 cms. broad by 56 cms.high. The first four lines are only about 44 cms. long whereas the rest of them occupy the entire space of the breadth. The average height of the letters ranges between 1.5 and 2 cms. They are formed rudely and carelessly, as also noted by Cunningham and Kielhorn, and the incisions are not deep, despite the fact that the stone is sufficiently thick, as already stated above. The preservation of the inscription is far from satisfactory. Besides a number of abrasions that it shows, about one-third of the initial portion of almost every line from the 6th to the last has almost disappeared, leaving traces here and there, and parts of most of the letters in these lines have peeled off or effaced, though a letter or two here and there can be made out, e.g., purē in 1. 6, dēva and –āditya in 1. 7, again dēva in 1. 8, pratirājēna in 1.13 and likhitaṁ in the end. Even the name of the person appearing before likhitaṁ cannot be correctly made out. ...The alphabet is Nāgarī. The consonant t occasionally appears in its antique form, e.g., in prati-, 1. 13 ; dh has developed a horn on its left limb and in some instances it is joined
to the curve of the mātrā, e.g., in -adhi- in 11. 4 and 2 respectively ; and finally, the slightly
different forms of r can be seen in the same word –rāja- in 11. 2 and 3. The language is
Sanskrit and the whole record is in prose. The only orthographical peculiarity worth noting
is the use of the ūrdhva-mātrā.
[1]
On pp. 30-31. Cunningham also described the antiquities found at that place.
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