North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

No. 55 ; PLATE LIV
ATRŪ STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF JAYASIMHA
[Vikrama ] Year 1314

...THIS inscription was discovered by D.R. Bhandarkar in the early years of the present century ; and he published his transcript of it in the Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of Western Circle, for 1905-06, p. 56. He also included it in his List of Inscriptions of North India (No. 554). But the record has neither been so far edited critically nor is it illustrated with a lithograph. It is edited here from excellent estampages which I owe to the Chief Epigraphist of the Archaeological Survey of India.

... The record is incised on a pillar of the Gaḍgach temple, as it is locally called, at Atrū, which is the chief town of a tehsīl in the Kōṭā District of Rājasthān and a station on the Kōṭā Bīnā line of the Western Railway. The inscription consists of six lines of writing, measuring 31 cms. broad by 23 cms. high, excluding three figures at the top which appear to be uncon- nected with it, and the figures of an ass and a woman below. The last of the lines is only 11 cms. in length. The average height of the letters ranges between 3 and 3.5 cms. The record is carefully engraved and is in a good state of preservation.

... The characters belong to the Nāgarī alphabet of the thirteenth century A.C. ch is distinguished from v by its angular loop, as in chakra-, 1.3 ; j and bh have their antique forms, e.g., in Jaya-, 1. 1 and gardabha-, 1. 5, respectively ; dh shows a straight horn on its left limb, as in rājādhi-, 1.1 ; and lastly, r is engraved as a vertical with a horizontal stroke attached to its middle on the left, as in the same instance.

... The language is Sanskrit, with a few grammatical errors ; and the record is throughout in prose. The orthographical peculiarities are that the dental sibilant is used in sāsana-, 1. 4, and the local element figures in the use of gh for h in Jayasiṁgha, 1. 2, jō for yō in 1. 4, and in writing vashai for varshē in 1. 6, if we take D.R. Bhandarkar’s reading to be correct.

... The inscription is one of the Mahārājādhirājā Jayasiṁgha(ha)dēva, and its object is to record the donation by him of the village Mhaisaḍā in the territorial division of Paṁvīṭha in favour of a kavichakravartin, Ṭhakara Nārāyaṇa. It is dated in the (Vikrama) year 1315, [6] which corresponds to the northern expired year 1258 A.C. No further details of the year are to be found in the inscription, which ends with an imprecation to fall on one whosoever discontinues the gift.

... The record does not say anything about the name of the family to which Jayasiṁha belonged and it is also silent about his genealogy But, as we shall see below, he was a Paramara
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[1] This letter has only traces left. The fourth akshara in this line is mutilated but the reading is certain.
[2] The reading of the third akshara of the name of the maṇḍala is highly doubtful, as also noted by Kielhorn, but here I follow him.
[3] Two aksharas are lost here and an equal number of them at the commencement of the next line.
[4] Cunningham read tasminukālē and took Ukālēvandana as a name ; but in that case the consonant n would have been doubled To me, however, this letter also appears as marked by a stroke resembling the sign of the mātrā of u.
[5] The rest of the inscription cannot be satisfactorily made out for reasons stated above in the article.
[6] See n. in the text, below.

....................CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM
VOL.VII ..........................................................................PLATE XXVII
RAHATGADH STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF JAYAMHA; (VIKRAMA) YEAR 1312

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