North Indian Inscriptions

PREFACE

..TILL about two centuries ago, Śilāhāra family, like most other royal families of ancient India, was completely unknown to history. There were indeed several stone inscriptions scattered about in North Koṅkaṇ and the region round Kolhāpur, but none noticed or cared for them. In 1784, during the time of Governor-General Warren Hastings, the Asiatic Society of Bengal was founded, which gave a fillip to the study of Indian antiquities. Four years later, in 1788, the first Volume of its journal, the Asiatic Researches, was published. It contained General Carnac’s English translation of the Ṭhāṇā plates of the Śilāhāra king Ārikēsarin, dated in the Śaka year 939 (A.D. 1017). It was prepared by the General with the help of Pandit Ramalochan of Calcutta, and was quite literal, English words being used for Sanskrit ones exactly as in Sanskrit compounds. This volume of the journal was so enthusiastically hailed that it went through as many as five reprints. In one of these, the facsimile of the first plate of the grant, and, in another, its transcript were published. These plates are not procurable now, but their Sanskrit text conjecturally restored with the help of other Śilāhāra records has been included in the present Volume. Since then several inscriptions of the Śilāhāras have been published in Indian and foreign periodicals. But they have been edited as they were discovered, and have not been arranged systematically. In 1837 James Prinsep indicated the necessity of arranging systematically the available inscriptional material bearing on ancient Indian history, and also suggested the name Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum for the Series of its volumes. The first volume of this Series was published exactly a hundred years ago, in 1877, by Sir Alexander Cunningham. Since then it has been re-edited by Dr. Hultzsch. Two more volumes of the Series have also been edited− Vol. II Part i (Kharoshṭhī Inscriptions) by Sten Konow, and Part ii (Bhārhut Inscriptions) by Lüders, Waldschmidt and Mehendale, and Vol. III (Gupta Inscriptions) by Fleet.

..In 1935 I was invited by the then Director General of Archaeology to edit a Volume of the inscriptions of the Kalachuri-Chedi Era in the Series. I accepted the arduous task. though with considerable diffidence, as several records of the era had been discovered in the Hindispeaking part of the then Central Provinces and Berar, where I had been living for a long time. The Volume was published ultimately in 1955. Just about that time I had prepared another collection of inscriptions, viz., that of the records of the Vākāṭakas, who, in ancient times, were ruling over the Marathi-speaking part of the province. On coming to know of it, the Director General of Archaeology offered to publish it as a Volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. The offer was accepted, and the Volume was published eight years later, in 1963. I have thus in a way tried to pay, however inadequately, the debt I owe to the province where I have spent the best part of my life during the last more than fifty years.

..After the Vākāṭaka Volume was published, I thought of collecting and editing the available inscriptions of the Śilāhāras, who were ruling over Koṅkaṇ where I was born, and over the Kolhāpur region where I received my early education. I have spent most of my time during the last dozen years in collecting and editing the inscriptions of that royal family, and in solving the Problems presented by its history. I offered my work to the Director General of Archaeology in my letter dated the 31st May 1971, and requested him to supply me the estampages of some unpublished records of the Silāhāras. Ultimately, I submitted the typescript of the Volume to him on the 30th January 1973. It was accepted for publication by him on the 22nd February 1973. I am glad to see its printing completed now.

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