|
The Indian Analyst
|
North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA discovery of this record, Dr. Mirashi first published a note on the contents it in some local papers ; [1] and from estampages prepared and supplied to him by the then Government Epigraphist, Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra, he edited the inscription in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXVI (1941), pp. 177 ff., with a translation and a facsimile, facing p. 183. It is edited here from an inked impression which I owe to the Chief Epigraphist of the Archaeological Survey of India. ...The writing on the stone has suffered a good deal by exposure to weather, and it covers a space about 130 cms. broad by 20 cms. high,. It consists of eight lines. The average height of the letters is 1.8 cms. in the first six lines but it is reduced to 1.5 cms. in the seventh and to 1.3 cms. in the line, to accommodate the writing. While editing the inscription in 1941 Mirashi has observed : “Some aksharas in the first and the last lines and at either end of the remaining ones have now become almost illegible. Besides, the stone was not originally well dressed and the technical execution of the record also is not satisfactory”. [2] And since the time when he edited the inscription it has become still more damaged as shown by the impression prepared in 1958-59, which is published with this article and on which the text given here is based. [3] ...The characters are Nāgarī of the twelfth century. The initial a begins with a curve first drawn upwards and then joined to its vertical with a horizontal stroke, as in asty-, 1. 1 and ātmai -, 1. 5 ; though a somewhat advanced form thereof is to be seen in arthi-, 1. 5 and āchan- dra-, 1. 6 ; ṅ has not developed the dot, see -laṅkāra-, 1. 5 ; ḍ in Ḍōṅgara-, 1. 6, is formed as the modern r ; the subscript ṇ appears as l ; cf. svarṇṇa-, 1. 5 ; and of the other consonants, j, dh and ś have their old forms and t, n and v are occasionally formed alike ; see bhuvanāni, 1. 3, and svāmī, 1. 4. As Mirashi has already observed, particularly worth nothing is the form of the pṛishṭha- mātrā of the medial ai and au, showing both the mātrās before the letter instead of one above and the other before, as was the practice of the age
...The language is Sanskrit ; and with the expception of the introductory ōṁ namaḥ Śivāya and the admonition in the end, the name of the writer and the date in the last Iine, the inscription is composed in verse, showing fourteen stanzas which are all numbered. The orthographical peculiarities are almost the same as to be found in the contemporary records, viz., (1) the use of the sign of v to denote b also except in babhūva, 1. 2 where b has a distinct form ; (2) the doubling of a consonant following r, e.g. in –Arvvuda, 1. 1; (3) the use of the avagraha twice in 1. 4 ; and (4) wrongly spelt some words like -saṁhritīḥ, 1. 1 and –vansē, 1. 2. ...The inscription belongs to the reign of of the Paramāra prince Jagaddēva. The object thereof is to record that this prince donated the village of Dōṅgaragrāma to the Brāhmaṇa Śrīnivāsa and that the latter constructed there a temple dedicated to Śiva. The date, as given in figures in the last line, is the full moon day of Chaitra in the Śaka year 1034, the cyclic year being Nandana. It does not admit of verification but it may be noted that, as observed by Mirashi, it corresponds to the expired Śaka year 1034 when the cyclic year was Nandana according to the southern lunisolar system. The date corresponds regularly to Friday, the 15th March, 1112 A.C. [4]
...The inscription opens with the customary obeisance to Śiva, and after one maṅgala-ślōka paying homage to the same deity, it gives the genealogy of the house to which Jagaddēva
belonged. As several other records of the dynasty, it mentions the fire-origin of the main
Paramāra house, stating how a hero of the name of Paramāra sprang from the fire-altar of the
sage Visishṭha, whose cow was taken away by Viśvāmitra, and in the family of this hero, which
surpassed the races of (sprang from) the Sun and the moon there was born a king of the name
of Bhōjadēva, who resembled Rāma in excellence. The next two verses (5-6) introduce
Bhōja’s brother Udayāditya, who uplifted the kingdom of Mālava which had sunk under the
attacks of three enemies. This information is historically important in two ways, viz., in showing Udayāditya’s definite relationship with Bhōja and also in giving the exact number of the
[1] This inscription is not noticed in Hiralal’s List of Inscrs. cf C.P. and Berar. In his article Dr. Mirashi
informed us (in 1941) that there are two old temples at the village and the one in which the present inscription was found had its maṇḍapa alone standing.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|