North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PARAMARAS OF MALWA

AMERĀ STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF NARAVARMAN

formed and carelessly cut : and in the first eight lines they are smaller and written very close to each other. The inscription is also mutilated in 11. 1, 3-6, 11, 14, 18 and 23, owing to its exposure to weather and also due to human frivolities ; and as a result of this, it is completely illegible in the middle of the first eleven lines and in a major part in 1. 1. The latter portion of the record (11. 9 onwards) is somewhat better preserved. However, the sub-joined transcript prepared with patience and perseverance enabled us to form a general idea of this important record.

...The characters are Nāgarī of the late eleventh of early twelfth century A.C., as shown by the usual peculiarities of the forms of letters like kh in mukha, 1. 13, dh in dhavala, 1. 12, bh in sobhita, 1. 1. and those like p. y and sh which often lose their upright stroke, as in kalpē, 1. 20, tasya. 1. 11, and jhasha, 1.17. To note some other peculiarities, ch has developed a triangular loop : cf. cha, 1. 17 ; but occasionally this form is also to be found in writing dh and v ; see saṁdhyā, 1. 15 and vidhātā, 1. 11. The rare jh occurs in jhasha, 1. 17 ; and ṇ, whether alone or a member of a conjunct consonant, is occasionally not distinguished from l ; see Nārāyaṇa and puṇya, respectively in 11. 4 and 19. R has both the forms, the one as in the modern Nāgarī, e.g. in ghōra, 1. 1, and the other with a wedge drawn downwards and rather longer, as Bharadvāja. 1. 11. J and s show their transitional stage ; their old forms are to be seen in Bharadvāja, 1.11 and snāna, 1. 15, and advanced forms in prajā-, 1. 20 and saṁlagna-, 1. 21. Besides these regular features, there are errors of wrong engraving ; e.g., in some cases the reading of ś and s is doubtful ; in ṗratiratha, 1. 3, the consonant of the second letter looks like v and of the fourth as sh, and the medial short u appears as the subscript r, e.g., in kula, 1. 11.

...The language of the inscription is Sanskrit ; and except for the last three lines recording the date and the names of the writer and the engraver, it is throughout in verse. The verses are not numbered, but they appear to be fifteen in all. Because of the mutilated condition of the record, it is difficult to know where a verse actually ends and another begins. The orthography does not present anything worth notice except the use of the sign of v to denote b as well, as in vabhūva, 1. 12 ; putting the dental for the palatal sibilant, e.g. in suddha, 11. 8 and 15 ; and the doubling of a class-consonant after r, as kīrtti -, 1. 13. The sign of avagraha is used only once in 1. 5, and the sign of the anusvāra does the duty of a class-nasal even at the end of a hemistich, which is of course wrong. The use of j for y in jatra, 1. 18, and in bhuy- for bhuj- and rāya- for rāja-, both in 1. 21, betrays local influence. Punctuation marks are sometimes wrongly used and there are grammatical and other mistakes which are noticed in the text that follows.

...The inscription belongs to the reign of the Paramāra king Naravarman, and the object thereof is to record the construction of a tank (evidently the same in the vicinity of which the stone was found), by a Brāhmaṇa named Vikrama, during the reign of this king. The name of the writer consisted of four aksharas, the first two of which are lost and the rest two are pāla. He is called a Paṇḍita ; and the record was inscribed by his son Saumatika. The date, as given in numerical symbols in 1. 22, is the seventh day of Āshāḍha of the (Vikrama) year 1151. The date does not admit of verification.

Northern V. 1151 current : Saturday, 4th June, 1093 A.C.
Northern V. 1151 current : Friday, 23rd June, 1094 A. C.
Southern V. 1151 expired : Tuesday, 12th June, 1095 A. C.

... Considering the correct equivalent of the date, we have an important information supplied by v. 5 of the record, viz. that it was incised during the reign of Naravarman, and this helps us in this respect. From the next inscription we know that this ruler succeeded his father Udayāditya in V.S. 1151 current ; and in the light of this information, we are justified in believing that the present record must have been incised in V.S. 1151 expired ; and this is the only way in which we can reconcile the date of the present record with that of the next inscription. [1] Accordingly, Friday, the 23rd June, 1094 A. C. seems to be the true equivalent of the date, and following this, we may reject both the other solutions. The definite date and month when Naravarman actually came to the throne will be discussed in course of editing the next record.
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[1] In view of the month of Āshāḍha (V.S. 1151) in which this record was put to stone, the year mentioned in the Dēwās grant (No. 30 ) of Naravarman, which is Bhādrapada (V.S. 1152) when he performed the death anniversary of his father Udayāditya, has to be taken as current and not expired. See J. Bihar Research Society. Vol. LVII. pp. 80 f.

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