North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SILAHARAS OF NORTH KONKAN

..The copper-plates, three in number, measure 27.94 cm. by 22.86 cm. and were held together by a ring passing through a hole at the top of each plate. The ring and the seal which must have been soldered to it are not forthcoming now. The edges of the plates were made thicker to protect the record on them, which is now in an excellent state of preservation. The first and third plates are inscribed on the inner side, and the second on both the sides. The record consists of 90 lines, of which twenty-four are written on the first plate, twenty-five on each side of the second plate, and the remaining sixteen on the third plate. The engraving is bold and neatly done. Some words which were at first omitted have been written in a smaller form with the number of the respective line in the lower margin of the plate, their places in the record being marked by an asterisk. A few corrections also have been marked here and there.

..The characters are of the Nāgarī alphabet. The following peculiarities may be noted. The initial still retains its old form consisting of a curve turned to the left below two dots (see iva, line 6); kh does not yet show a tail in the left member (see khyātaḥ, line 3); ṅ is still without a dot (see Jagattuṅgāṅgaja-, line 4); h, on the other hand, shows a district tail as in saṁharshatō, line 10; the avagraha occurs in several places to denote the elision of initial a (see lines 5,11, 22 etc.). The language is Sanskrit. After the opening siddhaṁ, namaḥ Purushōttamāya, the initial portion is metrically composed. It consists of thirty-three verses. This is followed by the formal portion in prose in lines 44 to 72, in which one verse drawing attention to the transitoriness of life, youth and wealth is embedded. Finally, there occur twelve benedictory and imprecatory verses in lines 72-84. The record closes with the mention of the royal sanction and the names of the Amātya, the Minister for Peace and War, and the scribe.

..As regards orthography, we may note the use of the dental nasal for the guttural in Dhruv-ānkō, line 4, the reduplication of the consonant following r as in bhū-bharttā, line 3, the use of v for b as in guru-valaḥ, line 8, and of s for ś as in sēshaḥ, line 13. The vowel ṛi is wrongly written for ri in nistṛiṁśa- line 10. The record is, on the whole, correctly composed, grammatical solecisms such as adhitasthau, line 34, and vadīḥ (for vādīḥ), line 78, being few.

.. The object of the inscription is to record the grant, by the Śīlāra (Śilāhāra) king Aparājitadēva, of the pallikā (village) called Palachchha-uchchhikā in (the territorial division) Vihalē situated in the vishaya (district) of Chikkhalāḍa in the country of Purī-Kōṅkaṇa comprising 1400 villages. While stating the boundaries of the village are mentioned the neighbouring villages of Mānēchōlī, Koṭilēvallī and Majjigrāma. The grant was made on the mahāparvan of the solar eclipse which occurred on Sunday, the fifteenth tithi of the dark fortnight of Śrāvaṇa, when the sun was in the zodiacal sign (rāśi) of Siṁha in the cyclic year Vijaya and the expired Śaka year 915 expressed both in words and figures. The king made this grant after taking a bath and worshipping the gods Hari (Vishṇu), Hiraṇyagarbha (Brahmā) and Dahana (Agni). The donee was the Kramavid Brāhmaṇa Kōlama of the Ṛigvēda Sākhā, the son of Haridēva, who had mastered the Sāmavēda and had hailed from Karahāṭa. The king’s Mahāmātya, who was his chief counsellor, was Ammaṇaiya, and his Minister for Peace and War was Jhañjamaiya. The scribe was the Kāyastha Uddāma, the son of Chakkaiya.

.. The date of the grant can be completely verified. It corresponds, for the expired Śaka year 915, to Sunday, the 20th August A.D. 993, when the fifteenth tithi of the dark fortnight of the amānta Śrāvaṇa ended 6 h. 45 m. after mean sunrise. There occurred a solar eclipse on that tithi and the cyclic year current at the time was also Vijaya by the southern luni-solar system. The sun was then in the Siṁha rāśi. The date is this perfectly regular.

.. The inscription gives first, in lines 2-21, the genealogy of the Rāshṭrakūṭas, who were the suzerains of the early Śilāhāra rulers, and mentions the following seventeen kings :- 1. Gōvindarāja (I); 2. Karkarāja (I); 3. Indrarāja (I); 4. his son Dantivarman; 5. Karka-