North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SILAHARAS OF NORTH KONKAN

..“The inscribed stone is a large slab of yellowish white sandstone and bears at the top the figure of the Sun and the Moon with a kalaśa in the centre, leaving some space in between. The slab is smoothly dressed in the middle for the writing of the inscription, which consists of ten lines only. Towards the bottom of the record appears the ass-curse pictorially represented, as seen in some Śilāhāra and Yādava inscriptions of the period.

.. The inscription is very neatly engraved and is in a fair state of preservation. It covers a space of about 44 cm. by 23 cm. [1]”

.. The characters are of the Nāgarī alphabet. The following peculiarities may be noted. The long form of initial i occurs in line 9 ; ch does not yet show a horizontal stroke to the left (see paṁcha-, line 2) ; the upper loop of th is open (see tathā, line 8) ; the palatal ś has now reached the modern Nāgarī form (see –abhyudayaś-cha, line 1), and h show a distinct tail on the left (see gṛiha line 7). The language is a mixture of Sanskrit and Marathi. What is said in Sanskrit in lines 5 and 6 is repeated in Marathi in lines 7 and 8, evidently for the information of the general public. The orthography shows the use of j for y in dēja, line 6, and that of the dental s for the palatal s as in Saka, line 1.

..The object of the present inscription is to record the vyavasthā (regulation) laid down by the illustrious Haripāladēva in respect of the village Māhavala included in the vishaya of Shaṭshashṭi, namely, that all the houses in it would be exempt from the house-tax, and that the tax on the areca-nut trees would be three drammas per hundred. [2] The inscription also records the gift of a vāṭikā (orchard) in Ḍōmbila to the Brāhmaṇa Gōvardhanabhaṭṭa. The inscription ends with the usual ass-curse for the those who would interfere with the vyavastha.

..The inscription mentions the date on which Haripāladēva proclaimed this vyavasthā, viz. the lunar eclipse on Sunday, the fifteenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Āshāḍha in the Śaka year 1075 (expressed both in words and figures), the cyclic year being Śrīmukha. There was a lunar eclipse on the fifteenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Āshāḍha in Śaka 1075, when the cyclic year was Śrīmukha as stated here. the corresponding Christian date being the 7th July A.D. 1153, but the week-day was Tuesday, not Sunday as required. To this extent the date is irregular.

.. Haripāladēva bears no royal title, but there is no doubt that he is the Śilāhāra king of that name whose inscriptions ranging from Śaka 1070 to 1076 have been discovered in North Koṅkaṇ. The present date, therefore, falls in his reign-period.

.. There are only three localities mentioned in the present record. Shaṭshashṭi, as already shown, corresponds to the modern Sāshṭī in North Koṅkaṇ. The village Māhavala is clearly Māhul in Trombay, where the stone was discovered. Ḍōmbila may be modern Ḍōmbivalī in the Kalyāṇ tālukā of the Ṭhāṇā District, a station on Bombay-Poona branch of the Central Railway.

TEXT [3]

[1] Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXVII, p. 165.
[2] Dikshit takes the record to mean that three baskets were to be paid to Government per hundred baskets ; but the reading is clearly drāma 3, not ḍāla 3. Besides, a similar tax, viz. 4 drammas per 100 betel-nuts (?) is laid down also in the Bhoighar plates. (See, Appendix, No. 61).
[3] From the facsimile facing p. 166 in Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXVII.
[4] Expressed by a symbol.