North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

THE DHĀR INSCRIPTIONS

the inscriptions is complete in itself, though they are allied inasmuch as they deal with the same subject of Nāgarī alphabet and grammatical terminology. The letters are beautifully engraved and well preserved except that they have suffered from partial decay and peeling off in some places, as the material of grey lime stone on which they were cut was not quite suitable for incisions. [1] Here we may also point out that quite a large number of some other inscriptions which were incised on the floor or pavement of the same structure, appear to have been deliberately chiselled off so as to leave a letter here and there, in some later time, [2] were all on durable black stone, whereas the inconspicuous position of the pillars appears to have saved them from the fate which the other inscriptions have undergone due to vandalism.

...A

...The first of these inscriptions, which is on the proper right side of the pulpit and faces the east, measures about 70 cms. in height and 30.5 cms. in breadth. The letters of the alphabet are about 1 cm. in size, while those of the terminations in the tail are slightly smaller. The inscription is written in the Nāgarī alphabet of about the 11-12th century. The language in Sanskrit. It is an alphabitical chart and its contents are identical with those of its counter part in the Mahākāla temple inscription, as seen above. As the alphabet plays the chief part in this inscription, it has rightly been called alphabetical.

B

...This inscription, which is on the proper left side of the raised platform and faces the south, is bigger in size, being 91.55 cms. high and 45 cms. in breadth. The language is Sanskrit ; and the palaeographical and orthographical peculiarities are the same as stated above. The inscription commences with two verses in the Anushṭubh metre, with the symbol for svasti in the beginning. They are written in four lines, in a space 17 cms. broad by 5 cms. high. They are identical with verses 86-87 of the Ujjain inscription and are not marked. Below the verses and leaving a vacant space measuring 13 cms. in height, we find a chart(bandha) made up by the intertwining of two serpents, probably male and female, as Lele has rightly remarked, exhibiting on their body the personal terminations of ten lakāras (tiṅvibhaktis) together with 16 dhātu-pratyayas. The chart may divided in three parts, viz., the top, the middle and the bottom portions. In the top section the letters are very indistinct except for the initial atha, and they have been conjecturally restored by Sastri as atha tiṅ-vibhakti-bandhaḥ; but as already remarked by Sircar while publishing Sastri”s article, the letters appear as atha ………….dhātuḥ. [3]

...The middle section of the chart is shaped as a square standing vertically on one of the angles of the top section. It is divided into 180 compartments, each of which is a parallelogram cut by “drawing nine parallel lines one way and seventeen the other way across.” The space between each pair of parallel lines, as remarked by Sastri, “is alternately closed by means of projecting loops at either and along the four sides of the square turning the sets of parallel lines into two running spirals end to end.” The five loops and the five intervening open spaces between them, in the upper left arm of the square, contain the initial letters of the terms de are used. These letters are, in serial order, va, sa, vi, hya, a, pa, sva(śva), ā, bha and kri, res- pectively standing for vartamāna, sambhāvanā, vidhi, [4] hyastana-atīta, atīla-sāmānya, parōksha, śvastana-bhavishyat, āśīr, bhavishyat and kriyātipatti or kriyākrama, indicating, respectively, the
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[1] I am thankful to Shri Deshpande, technical Assistant in the Arch. Surv. of Ind. at Māṇḍū, for the information that the stones of the pillars are similar to those found in quarries in the adjoining region, for example, at Tārāpur. etc.
[2] Now nothing can be made out of these inscriptions except that they were in Sanskrit and Prākrit.
[3] See Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXI. p. 29. n. The letters are rather indistinct ; but I read atha dhātuḥ- between
the heads of the serpents and the word pratyaya straight down in the base.
[4] In his note Lele read this letter as pa and the preceding letter as sa, and took them as for pañchamī and saptamī, remarking that they are so called because they are the 5th and 7th in the usual enumeration of the tenses. but to me the consonant of this letter appears as p and the mātrā is clear. though mutilated.

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