North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SILAHARAS OF KOLHAPUR

TRANSLATION

.. Like Garutmat (i.e. Garuḍa) to the illustrious Hari (i.e. Vishṇu), like Shaṇmukha (i.e. Kārttikēya) to the enemy of Cupid (i.e. Śiva), like the son of Wind (i.e. Hanumat) to the king Rāghava (i.e. Rāma), Boppaṇa-daṇḍanāyaka is to king Vijaya—(being) a terror to (his) enemies, (being) the foremost among good soldiers by his proficiency in killing the enemies in war.

No. 58 : PLATE CXII
KOLHĀPUR STONE INSCRIPTIONS OF BHŌJA II : ŚAKA YEAR 1104

.. THE stone bearing this inscription is said to have been found while digging the foundation wall of Mr. Panditrao’s house in the enclosure of the temple of Mahalakshmī at Kolhāpur some years ago, and was then built into the outer wall of the Hari-Harēśvara shrine in the courtyard of the temple for safe preservation. It is now preserved in the Town Hall at Kolhāpur. The record was edited by Dr. M. G. Dikshit, first in Marathi in his Select Inscriptions from Mahārāshṭra (Marathi), pp. 73 f., and later in English in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIX, pp. 13 f. The inscription is edited here from an estampage supplied by the Chief Epigraphist for India. Dr. Dikshit has given the following description of the record :

..“The inscribed stone is about 4¼ ft. (129.54 cm.) in length and 2½ ft. (76.20 cm.) broad. At the top, figures of the sun, the moon and a maṅgala kalaśa, a milching cow with a calf, and a sword are carved in high relief and are now worshipped daily by the visitors to the shrine. There are 39 lines of writing which are fairly well preserved. Some parts of the record are, however, damaged and worn out, probably on account of the constant watering of the stone resorted to by its worshippers. A few letters at the end of lines have also been damaged while fixing the slab in its present position.” [1]

.. The characters are of the Nāgarī alphabet. The only peculiarities worth noting here are the forms of dh and r. Dh has developed a horn on the left. Still the two vertical strokes of dhā are joined by a horizontal line (see vasudhā, line 34). R has a curve on the left (see parihāra, line 33). The language is Sanskrit, and the record is partly in verse and partly in prose. After the initial maṅgala-ślōka, the genealogy of the reigning king is given in thirteen verses. This is followed by the formal part in prose in lines 17-33. As regards orthography, ksha is used for khya in Śrī-Gūvalakshō, line 5, and mukshādi, line 11 ; v in some places used for b and s for ś as in sivirē, line 19, and the rules of sandhi are violated here and there.

.. The inscription refers itself to the reign of the Silāra (Śilāhāra) king, the Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara Bhōja II. His genealogy is given mostly as in other records of the family, but there are a few differences. The present inscription gives the names of the four sons of Mārasiṁha in the following order : Gūvala, Bhōja (I), his younger brother Ballāla and his younger brother Gaṇḍarāditya. The Tāḷale plates state explicitly that Bhōja (I) was a younger brother of Gūvala. But the Kolhāpur stone inscription of Vijayāditya, dated Ś. 1065, gives the names of these in the following order—Gūvala, Gaṅgadēva, Ballāladēva, Bhōjadēva and Gaṇḍarāditya. This order is different. Some records like Bāmaṇī stone inscription of Vijayā- ditya do not mentioned most of the collaterals in the genealogy.

..The regning king Bhōja II bears many of the birudas cited in other records of the Śilā-
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[1] Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIX, p. 13.