South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MINISTERS AND FEUDATORIES OF THE
VATSAGULMA BRANCH

No. 25 : PLATE XXV
AJAṆṬĀ CAVE INSCRIPTION OF VARAHADEVA

...THIS inscription was first brought to notice by Dr. Bhau Daji, who published an eye-copy of it together with a transcript of its text and a translation in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1862), Vol. VII, pp. 56 f. Dr. Bhau Daji noticed in it the names of the kings Vindhyaśakti, Pravarasēna and Dēvasēna, and of their ministers Hastibhōja and Varāhadēva. He identified the first two of these kings with the homonymous princes of the Vākāṭaka dynasty who had already become known from the Siwanī plates of Pravara- sēna II. The inscription was next edited with an introductory note and a translation, but without a facsimile, by Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji in the Inscriptions from the Cave-Temples of Western India (Archaeological Survey of India) (1881), pp. 69 f. Pandit Bhagvanlal noticed in it the names of the following Vākāṭaka kings−Vindhyaśakti ; Pravarasēna ; [Rudra]sēna ; (a name lost) ; Dēvasēna ; and Harishēṇa. The transcript was prepared by the Pandit with his wonted skill and shows a great improvement over that of Dr. Bhau Daji. The record was next edited, with a translation and a lithograph, by Dr. Bühler in the Archaeolo- gical Survey of Western India, Vol. IV (1883), pp. 124 f. and Plate LXVII. Dr. Bühler’s lithograph was made from a facsimile carefully prepared by Pandit Bhagvanlal. It seems, however, to have been somewhat worked up by hand. Dr. Bühler’s transcript does not differ much from Pandit Bhagvanlal’s, but he noticed two additional names viz., Pṛithivīshēṇa and Pravarasēna (II) after [Ru]drasēna in the genealogical portion of the record. I discussed the contents of the inscription in a paper which I contributed to the fourth session of the Indian History Congress held at Lahore in 1940¹ and later edited it, from an excellent estampages supplied by the Government Epigraphist for India, in the Hyderabad Archaeological Series (1941). The record is edited here from the facsimile published with that article.

...The inscription is incised on the left-side wall at the extreme end outside the verandah of Cave XVI at Ajaṇṭā in the Hyderabad State. It has suffered a great deal by exposure to weather, especially in the middle of the first eight lines and on the left-hand side the whole way down. Besides, about a dozen aksharas have been completely lost in the last two lines at the lower left corner and one or two more in the centre of lines 25 and 26 owing to the flaking off of the surface of the stone.

... The inscription covers a space 4’ broad and 3’ 6” high and consists of 27 lines, beauti- fully written and carefully engraved. The characters are of the box-headed variety of the southern alphabets. The boxes at the head of letters are scooped out hollow as in the stone inscription at Dēoṭēk. The only points that call for notice are as follows :–−In initial ū the length is indicated by an additional upturned curve added at the base of the vertical ; see ūrddhva-, line 17 ; the medial i is shown by a curling curve to the left and the medical ō by a loop as in Udīrṇṇa and lōka- both in line 1 ; medial au is bipartite as in kshamaudaryya-, line 16 ; y is still tripartite ; l has in most cases a long vertical, but in some places
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... ¹ P.I.H.C., 1940, pp. 79 f.