North Indian Inscriptions

PREFACE

..The present Volume contains all available inscriptions of three out of ten known branches of the Śilāhāra family. They were ruling over North and South Koṅkaṇ, and over the region round Kolhāpur. The remaining branches of the family are not so well-known. When I thought of undertaking this work, several difficulties presented themselves. The estampages of some of the records had not been published. Some have now been lost. Some others are in the Kannaḍa language, and I am wholly ignorant of that language. But my friend Dr. G. S. Gai, Chief Epigraphist for India, rendered me valuable help in overcoming all these difficulties. He got several records copied by an Officer of his Department, supplied transcripts and translations of about half a dozen Kannaḍa inscriptions, and rendered me valuable help in various other ways. I have also received much help from some other friends like Mr. N. Lakshminarayan Rao, Dr. A. N. Upadhye and Mr. V.S. Balkundi. Unfortunately, the latter two are not now with us. I am deeply indebted to all these friends. But for their ungrudging help, this Volume could not have been prepared.

..The first attempt to write the political history of the Śilāhāras of North Koṅkaṇ was made by Rev. Alexander Kyd Nairne in the Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. I, part ii (1896). In the same Volume of the Gazetteer Dr. R.G. Bhandarkar gave the history of the Kolhāpur Śilāhāras, and Dr. Fleet that of all the three branches mentioned above. Next Dr. A. S. Altekar also dealt with the history of all the three branches in the Indian Culture, Vol. II. But all these scholars have given only the political history of these branches. The other aspects of their history have not been touched. Dr. M. G. Dikshit intended to write a comprehensive history of the Śilāhāras, and had gathered much material for it. It is a matter for regret that he did not live to complete his work.

..After I submitted my work to the Director General of Archaeology, I thought of publishing a short Marathi version of it as I had done before in the case of my two previous Volumes in the C.I.I.; for I was not sure of living to see the English Volume published. I was then in my eightieth year, and had not been keeping good health for some time. I also knew from past experience that the printing of the English Volume would take some years for completion. So I prepared an abridged Marathi version of it and, with the permission of the Director General of Archaeology, offered it to the Vidarbha Saṁshodhan Maṇḍal, Nagpur, for publication. The Maṇḍal published it three years ago with a subsidy from the Maharashtra State Board of Literature and Culture. Since then, some more inscriptions of the Śilāhāras have come to notice. They have been included in an Appendix.

.. The present Volume contains sixty-four inscriptions of the Śilāhāras of North and South Koṅkaṇ and the region round Kolhāpur, and one more of the Yādava king Siṅghaṇa, who annexed the Kolhāpur kingdom. One of these, viz., the aforementioned Ṭhāṇā plates of Arikēsarin, is known only from its English translation, and another, viz., the Bhoighar plates of Chhittarāja, was available in a mutilated form as recited from memory by a Vedic scholar. The Sanskrit texts of these two records have been restored conjecturally with the help of other Śilāhāra inscriptions from North Koṅkaṇ. All other records have been edited either from their originals or from their published facsimiles. Besides, the present Volume gives the political history of the three branches and describes the administration, religious, social and economic condition, literature, architecture and sculpture of the age. For the account of the Kannaḍa work, the Nēmināthapurāṇa, given here, I am indebted to my late friend Dr. A. N. Upadhye of Kolhāpur. For the illustrations of some Śilāhāra sculptures which were first published in the Bulletin of the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, I am thankful to the Director of the Museum, who kindly supplied their photographs. Prof. V. N. Rajagura of the Polytechnic Institution, Kolhāpur, has greatly obliged me by supplying the ground-plans of the Śilāhāra temples in Kolhāpur and Khidrapur.

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