No. 89 ; PLATE LXXXVIII- B
ARTHŪṆĀ IMAGE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIEM OF VIJAYAARĀJA
[Vikrama ] Year 1165

...THIS inscription was discovered by the late Pt. Gaurishankar Ojha, who very briefly noticed it in the Annual Report of the Rājputānā Museum, Ajmer, for 1917-18, on p. 2. It is also enlisted by D.R. Bhandarkar, in his List of inscriptions of N. India, under No. 177 ; but it remained unedited so far. It is edited here, for the first time, from my own transcript, based on two impressions, one of which was kindly supplied by the Superintending Archaeo- logist of the Western Circle, and the other, by the Chief Epigraphist, of the Archaeological Survey of India.

... The record is engraved on the pedestal of the stone image of Hanumān, in a dwarf temple built in the close proximity of that of Maṇḍanēśvara Mahādēva, at Arthūṇā, in the Bāṅswāḍā District of Rājasthān. Being coated with vermilion, along with the statue, the inscription baffled all attempts to decipher it; but at my request, the Superintending Archaeologist of the Western Circle deputed his Technical Assistant, instructing him to remove the coating and prepare fresh impressions for my use. This impression, too, was not satisfactory; and I was informed that a part of the inscribed pedestal was concealed beneath the modern cement flooring. Intimating this to the Chief Epigraphist, I requested him to do something in this respect; and he, in his turn, deputed the Superintendent for Epigraphy, from his Office, who visited the spot and prepared fresh impressions, after removing the cemented portion. The impression thus made available to me was found complete and helpful in transcribing the whole record. [11]

... The inscription consists of nine lines of writing, measuring 47 cms. long and 12 cms. high, The average height of the letters is about 1 cm., excluding the flourishes and mātrās above. The mechanical execution, however, betrays slovenliness on the part of the writer, as well as, on that of the engraver. A number of letters are not well formed, and a few of them are crisped into each other, making the task of a decipherer rather difficult. But after a patient examination it enabled me to make out the whole record, with a few breaks.

... The alphabet is Nāgarī of the twelfth century. The subscripts chh and th appear almost alike, as in Chhachchha. and Sthali, in 11. 3 and 6, respectively; ch, n and bh occasionally appear
_________________

[1] The intended aksharas were probably विंव.
[2] Two aksharas are lost here. Could they be
[3] The whole verse 25 is lost, and of the one that follows. only six letters are preserved.
[4] The next two aksharas which are lost may conjecturally be restored as क्षिता.
[5] Almost all the letters in this line are indistinct.
[6] From here the impression fails to give any intelligible and connected reading.
[7] The rest of the line is altogether indistinct and the letters in the next line are only partly preserved. The rest of the inscription is altogether lost, a stated above.
[8] The restoration is tentative. The last two lines are incised at the top.
[9] The rest of the line is lost.
[10] As above. The verse may have been completed on the border on the right side which has peeled of.
[11] His No. B-149 of 1972-73.

Home Page