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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SILAHARAS OF KOLHAPUR
both the class nasal and the anusvāra have been employed. The expression nāḍaroḍagaram literally meaning ‘with one’s countrymen’ is of lexical interest. .. The inscription is evidently of the reign of the Śilāhāra king Gaṇḍarāditya, for whom the blessings of the Tīrthaṅkara ĀdiJina (i.e. Ādinātha) are invoked in the first verse. The King bears some of his usual birudas such as Śaucha-Gaṅgēya and Rūpanārāyaṇa. His title Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara is also mentioned in line 3. The object of the inscription is to record the construction of the temple (chaityāgāra) of Āditīrthēśvara (i.e. Ādinātha) evidently at Kolhāpur. The temple is described as extensive and big, and as looking beautiful with excellent merchants’ quarters, with courtesans’ quarters on both sides, with an extensive māna-stambha and a storeyed house having doors which had acquired beauty with gold platings. This description, if it refers to the present modest structure, is evidently much exaggerated. On the other hand, it seems very unlikely that the alternate inscribed beams of the ceiling of the main maṇḍapa belonged to another structure and have subscquently been utilised for supporting the ceiling of the present maṇḍapa. There is no indication that the beams have been transplanted. It may be noted in this connection that an inscription on a pillar of another structure (viz. the Navagraha shrine) in another part of the court-yard of the Mahālakshmī temple refers to a vasati (Jaina temple), which shows that there were some Jaina shrines in the immediate neighbourhood of the great Mahālakshmī temple of Kolhāpur. The place was regarded as a mahā-tīrtha by both Hindus and the Jainas.
..The inscription is not dated, and does not refer to any political events ; but it gives very valuable information about a feudatory family owning allegiance to the Śilahāras. Nimbadēva, who constructed the chaityāgāra of Ādinātha, is identical with Nimbarasa who constructed the Rūpanārāyaṇa basadi of Pārśvanātha near the Śukravāra gate in Kolhāpur.[1] He was a lay disciple of Māghanandi-muni, the religious disciple of Kulachandra, who belonged to the lineage of Koṇḍakunda. These details about Nimbadēva or Nimbarasa are given by some other records also[2] ; but we get here the additional information that he was a son of Nākarasa and Champakāmbike, and had two brothers named Bhillarasa and Kāvarasa. Nimbarasa took part in the campaigns of the Śilāhāras, and won victories for them. He is, therefore, des- cribbed as the scent-elephant of Nāgaladēvī, who was probably the mother of Gaṇḍarāditya.[3] This elephant is figuratively described as having for its food the magnificent army of the hostile kings, and as using the dusty ground of the burnt city of the enemy as its bed. ..The inscription mentions also Karṇādēvī, a queen of Gaṇḍarāditya. She was a daughter of Nākirāja, another Sāmanta of the Śilāhāra king. Besides Nākarasa and Nākirāja, the inscription mentions Nāgārjuna, who is described as Indra among feudatories. He also was probably a Sāmanta of Gaṇḍarāditya.[4] .. The writer of the inscription was one Barevarāditya, who is described as a good poet and as resembling Cupid.
..
The inscription contains no date, but as it belongs to the reign of Gaṇḍarāditya, it is
evidently of the first half of the twelfth century A.D.
[1] The Teridāḷa inscription (Ind. Ant, XIV, pp. 14 f.) states explicitly (in 1. 64) that the basadi of Rūpanārāyaṇa was erected by the Sāmanta Nimbadēva of Kōllāpura.
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