North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

The mason has done his work with much care, though we find that in one instance or two he has put wrong strokes. As for the writer, we note that a letter omitted at first in l. 4 has been written above in a smaller size.

The inscription refers itself to the victorious reign of the illustrious Paramardidēva (l. 7), who is no other than the Chandēlla king Paramardin ; and its purpose is to record the installation of an image in a chaitya which was then constructed. The date of the record is given in l. 6, in figure only, as Friday, the third day of the bright half of Mārga, i.e., Mārgaśīrsha, of Saṁvat 1237, which has to be referred to the Vikrama era, following the practice of giving the year in that age. The date regularly corresponds to 21st November, 1180 A.C. The year is the Chaitrādi Vikrama, expired.

No special value attaches to the date since Paramardin, the grandson of Madanavarman, is known to have been reigning from 1166 to 1202 A.C.

The inscription commences with a prose sentence paying homage to Vītarāga, as already stated, and introduces the lineage of the persons who built the temple. The first ancestor spoken of here is the illustrious Dēvapāla, who is stated to have built a multiple-peaked temple (sahasrakūṭa) at Bāṇapura. He belonged to the grahapati family. The two verses that follow inform us that his son was Raṭnapāla. His descendant was Ralhaṇa, whose son was Galhaṇa, who built two temples of Śāntinātha, one at Ānandapur, and the other at Madanapura (known after the tank and after the king Madana, i.e., Madanavarman).¹ Galhaṇa’s son was Jāhaḍa, who had a younger brother called Dayachandra,² as we learn from the next verse. The following verse, i.e., verse 5 informs us that both these brothers, i.e., Jāhaḍa and Dayachandra, desiring to obtain salvation, jointly constructed the Śāntinātha chaitya, i.e., the sanctuary where the image of this Arhat was installed. Then comes the date as given above, and the name of the reigning king, which too we have seen above. Verse 6 desires the temple (kīrtana) to be everlasting, by stating that it may stand as long as the Sun, the moon, the sea and the stars continue. And the last stanza (v. 7) states that the image was prepared by the intelligent Pāpaṭa who was an architect (vāstuśāstrajña) and also a mason (rūpakāra), and was the son of Bālhaṇa. The inscription is silent about the person who constructed the temple.

The Grahapati family referred to here is known also from some Chandēlla and other inscriptions, showing its prevalence, importance and continuation from the time of the very rise of the royal house. For example, the Khajurāhō inscription of V. 1011 mentions one Pāhila belonging to this family as held in high esteem by Dhaṅga.³ About two decades subsequently, flourished a person with the same name and taken identical with him by D. C. Sircar, as consecrating with his brother Jījū, an image of Śāntinātha at Darbat.⁴ Still another person bearing the same name and belonging to the same family is referred to in an inscription of V. 1215 (1158 A.C.), which states that his son Sālhē installed an image of Sambhavanātha at Khajurāhō.⁵ In course of editing the respective inscriptions, we have seen that some of the members belonging to this family occupied a very influential position under Chandēlla kings and also that these persons were noted for making gifts and donations. And the present inscription which gives the pedigree of the brothers Jāhaḍa and Dayachandra who jointly installed the image, indicates the donations made by the same family, though they did not actually belong to the house of Pāhila. It also tells us that their father Galhaṇa was the supermost of the śrēshṭhins (śrēshṭhi-varishṭha) in the locality.

As for the geographical names occurring in the inscription, Bāṇapura where Dēvapāla, the earliest ancestor of the house mentioned here, is stated to have built a shrine (l. 1), is obviously the modern place of the same name (Lat. 24º 43’ N. ; Long. 78 ̊ 45’ E.), lying about 30 kms.

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¹ In view of the expression sō-‘yaṁ in v. 3, I take the two temples to be built by Galhaṇa. The construction is somewhat obscure here.
² For the reading of the name, see n. in the text, below.
³ No. 99 v. l. Also see I. N. I. No. 99.
⁴ No. 109, A. l. 2
⁵ No. 124. Kōkalla, another member of the same family, built a temple at Khajurāhō, in V. 1058. See Ep. Ind., Vol. I. p. 147.