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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA No. 19 ; PLATE XXI-A ...THIS inscription is incised on a hard, fine-grained red sand-stone, imbedded inside the east entrance of the great temple known as of Nīlakaṇṭhēśvara, at Udaipur,[1] a hamlet in the Bāsōdā parganā of the Vidishā (Bhilsā) District of Madhya Pradesh. The record has often been noticed, first by General Cunningham in his Archaeological Survey of India Reports, Vol. IX (1874-77). p. 109, then by Kielhorn in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XX (1891), p.83, and subsequently by D.R. Bhandarkar,[2] M.B. Garde[3] and some other scholars.[4] It is edited here for the first time from the original and an impression prepared and supplied to me, at my request, by the Superintending Archaeologist of the Central Circle of the Archaeological Survey of India. ...The writing which is fairly well preserved covers a space 46 cms, broad by 27.95 cms. high. It consists of six line. The size of the letters is about 4 cms. The characters are of the Nāgarī alphabet ; they are well formed and carefully cut. The pṛishṭha-mātrās are generally used to denote the medial dipthongs. As regards individual letters, the vowel i in iti-, 1. 2, is indicated by two loops placed horizontally, the first of which has a tail below and the second a hook above, and the initial ē in ēka-., 1. 1, is carved as the consonant pa without the vertical fully drawn. Of and ś in –yaśa-, 1.3, shows a combination of the palatal and the dental sibilants. And lastly, in a solitary instance in saṁvat, 1. 5, the sign of the consonant looks like the mātrā of the short u. ...The language is Sanskrit ; and except a verse in the beginning, which is not numbered, the whole record is in prose. The orthography shows the usual peculiarities such as the occasional use of the dental sibilant for the palatal as in sirasi, 1.3, the doubling of a consonant after r, as in sarvva-, 1. 2; this doubling is also to be found in a solitary instance in –chchhatra-,1. 1. ...The inscription refers itself to the reign of a king of the name of Udayāditya. The Object of it is to record the hoisting of flag on the temple. The inscriptions is dated in 1. 5, only in figures, in the (Vikrama) yesr 1137, the seventh tithi of the bright half of Vaisakha on the transition of the Sun on a rāśi which is not named. The year which corresponds to 1080 A.C., gives the earliest time for the reign of the king, whose genealogy is not mentioned, as it is a business record ; nor do we find in it the name of the family to which he belonged. But from the provenance of the inscription he is undoubtedly no other than the homonymous Paramāra prince, the brother of the illustrious Bhōjadēva, whose two more inscriptions, besides the Udaipur praśasti, were found in the same temple[5] which is also stated to have been built by him.[6] ...After the customary word svasti, the inscription expresses blessings in favour of the king Udayāditya for bringing the earth (his kingdom) under one sovereignty and mentions a union or transition of the Sun (saṁkrānti). The purpose of this statement is not known ; it may, however, be suggested that the writer of the inscription wished to refer to the latter part of the king’s name i.e. āditya, by the mention of the word ravi as we find in the Udaipur praśasti and also in some other records of the house.[7]
...Lines 3.4 of the inscription inform us that the verse (which begins the record) was composed
by Paṇḍita Mahīpāla, who was the son of Paṇḍita Śṛiṅgavāsa. Then we have the date as stated
[1]
For the history of Udaipur and the archaeological remains found at the place, see Cunningham’s A.S.I.R., Vol.
VII, p. 81 ; ibid., Vol. X, p. 65 ; A.S.I.R., W.C., 1913-14, p. 64 ; A.S.I.R., 1913-14, p. 133 ; I, 1914-15, p. 165,
and ibid., 1925-26, p. 188.
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