North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SILAHARAS OF NORTH KONKAN

No. 35 : Plate LXXIII
AKSHI STONE INSCRIPTION OF KESIDEVA II : SAKA YEAR 1131

..AKSHĪ is now a small village near Alibāg in the Kolābā District of North Koṅkaṇ. The inscription edited below has long been known. It is mentioned as follows in the old Kolābā District Gazetter [Bombay Gazetteers, (old ed.)], Vol. XI, p. 233—“Akshī has two temples, one of Kālkābōrvā Dēvī and the other of Sōmēśvara, Mahādēva. About twenty-five paces from the Dēvī’s temple, on the road, to the left of the house of one Rāma Nāik, is an inscribed stone, 4’3” long by 1’ broad. Above are the Sun and Moon followed by the ass-curse ; then comes a roughly cut writing of nine lines in Dēvanāgarī character, and below the writing, a second representation of the Sun and Moon.” The inscription has also been referred to by Mr. Cousens. It was edited first by Dr. S. G. Tulpule in the Marāṭhī Saṁśhōdhana Patrikā, Vol. V, part i, pp. 1-20. He subsequently revised his reading in the same journal, Vol. VI, part ii, pp. 116 f. Dr. M. G. Dikshit also edited it in the same journal, Vol. IX, part ii, pp. 2 f. The inscription has been included by Tulpule in his Prāchīna Marāṭhī Kōrīva Lēkha pp., 1 f. It is edited here from the plate accompanying Tulpule’s article in that Volume.

..The inscription has suffered greatly by exposure to the sun and rain, and several letters, which had been rather carelessly written and engraved, have been further damaged by exposure to weather so that their reading in many cases has become disputable.

.. The characters are of the Nāgarī alphabet. The initial i still retains its old form (see Bhaīrju, lines 4 and 7) ; ṇ has attained the modern from in Marathi (see sēṇui, line 4) ; dh has developed a horn to the left (see pradhānu, line 8). The language is old Marathi, in which Sanskrit expressions are greatly changed. See tasīmīnī kālē, line 4. The whole inscription is in prose. It seems that some space in the beginning of the first line was at first left blank. When the record could not be completed in line 9, some remaining words of the sentence were incised in that space. We have an analogous instance in the Kānhēgāon stone inscription of the Yādava king Kṛishṇa, dated Śaka 1180, in which an imprecatory verse which usually occurs at the end of a record is incised in the beginning [1]. As regards Arthography, we may note the use of the dental s for the palatal ś in Kēśidēva, line 3, and that of sh for kh in susha, line 1.

.. The inscription refers itself to the reign the illustrious Kēśidēva, who bears the imperial titles Paśchima-samudr-ādhipati and Śrī-Kōṅkaṇa-chakravartī. He is called Kēśidēva I by Tulpule and Kēśidēva II by Dikshit. As shown below, the present inscription belongs to the reign of the latter. He is known to have borne the imperial titles mentioned above. [2]

.. The date of the present inscription has been read differently by Tulpule and Dikshit. The former reads it as Śaka 934 (A.D. 1012), with the cyclic year Pradhāvi (incorrect for Paridhāvī), while the latter reads it as Śaka 1132, with the cyclic year Prabhavī (for Prabhava). Tulpule points out that the cyclic year does not agree with Śaka 1132 ; for it was Pramōda for Śaka 1132 expired, and Śukla for Śaka 1132 current. In neither case it was Prabhava. Tulpule’s own reading Śaka 934 is even more objectionable ; for the palaeographic evidence detailed above does not show that the inscription is as early as Śaka 934 (A.D. 1012). It seems that the correct reading of the date is Śaka 1131 ; for there is no knot in the last figure of the date as is usually seen in what denotes 2. Now, if we take the Śaka year 1131 as current, it will agree with the cyclic year Vibhava, which is the correct reading of the year in lines 5-6. The first letter v of its name resembles that in saṁvatu in the same line. So there should be no doubt
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[1] P.M.K.L., pp. 151 f.
[2] See No. 36, line 7.