North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

without its top-stroke, but the horn on its left limb is sometimes joined to the loop below, as in saṁdhattē, l. 7, or to the top of the vertical, e.g., in sudhīr-, l. 15 ; and occasionally the top of the verticle itself is slightly curved to the left so as to appear as the horn, for which, cf. –adhika-, l. 4. The slightly different forms of bh can be seen in kshōbha, l. 3, -abhya-, l. 4 and bhaṭa, l. 9 ; and r which has assumed its modern form, occasionally appears as a vertical marked with a horizontal stroke in the middle, e.g., in māruta-, l. 9. The subscript form of this letter continues to be marked by a serif as in prālēya-, l. 2, and occasionally also by a stroke to the left, as in -agra, in l. 6 ; and lastly, the middle of the left limb of l is formed as a vertical stroke, cf. prālēya-, l. 2.

The language is Sanskrit, which is almost correct, and with the date in the end, the extant portion of the record is all in verse, containing 20 stanzas in the usual embellished style. The verses are not numbered ; and with the exception of verses 10, 13, 16 and 19, all of them are fragmentary. In respect of orthography, we may note that (1) b is throughout denoted by the sign for v ; see vudha-, l. 13 ; (2) the dental sibilant is wrongly put for the palatal in some instances only ; cf. sāsvata-, l. 13, and of vice versa we have only one case, aśraviśrā, l. 10, where we find the wrong use of the dental sibilant ; (3) a consonant afterr is generally doubled ; see karṇṇa, l. 2 ; (4) the pṛishṭha-mātrā is used with a few exceptions like ¬-vaṁsē, l. 12 ; the final consonant is not marked expect in saṁvat in the last line ; and lastly, kshuṇṇa in l. 3 is spelt with the dental nasal, and –ujjvala-, in l. 12, appears with a single j, which cannot be defended grammatically.

The inscription is a praśasti, a laudatory account, as shown by the word used in v. 15 in l. 14 ; and its immediate object is to record the erection of a temple in honour of the lord Smarārāti (Śiva, the destroyer of Smara), as we learn from v. 17 in l. 15, by the learned Mādhava, a pious dvija and a teacher of arts and dance, who was the son of Lakshmaṇa and grandson of Nōnē of the Kāśyapa lineage (vv. 16-17). The praśasti was composed by Jayapāla, the son of Sūhila and grandson of Hallaṇa of the illustrious Vāstavya family (vv. 13-15). It was engraved by Dēvarāja, the son of Sōmarāja, and was probably written (on the stone) by Karṭripāla, whose name alone is fortunately preserved in verse 18.

The date of the inscription, as expressed only in words in the end, is Monday, the ninth of the dark half of Āshāḍha of the year 1240 ; and the year is also mentioned in v. 18 in word-numerals, stating that it was the era of Sāhasāṅka. As stated above, the era was taken by Cunningham as of Vikrama and so by Kielhorn also, who calculated its date accordingly. But in his List of Inscriptions of Northern India, D. R. Bhandarkar conjectures it to be the Kalachuri era, on the basis of his assumption that Sāhasāṅka is the same as Sāhasamallāṅka, used to denote Malayasiṁha, in his Rēwā stone inscription dated in the Kalachuri year 944, and hence the year of the present record, if taken as that of the Kalachuri era, works out all right for that era also ; and accordingly, it is equivalent to Monday, the 22nd June, 1184 A.C.¹ Showing that this view is incorrect, and also pointing out that Sāhasāṅka was the name of Vikramāditya, Dr. V. V. Mirashi concluded that the date of the inscription must be referred to the Vikrama era, as already done not only by Cunningham but also by Kielhorn, who calculated the year of the epigraph for the Southern expired Vikrama year 1240 and found the date equivalent to the 4th of June, 1184 A.C., when it was a Monday².

The existing portion of the inscription does not mention the name of any king or the family to which he may have belonged, but from a reference to the Moon and from the expression tatkulabhūshaṇa used soon after, we can conclude that the family belonged to the lunar race
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¹ See his List, p. 282, n. 2.
² Ind. Ant., Vol. XIX, p. 179, No. 127. For the whole discussion see Bhārata-Kaumudī, p. 435 and n. In ibid., p. 435, Mirashi also draws attention to Kshīrasvāmin’s commentary on the Amarakōśa, II, 8, 2, which identifies Vikramāditya with Sāhasāṅka. For the whole discussion also see C. I. I., Vol. IV, pp. 349-50. It may, however, be noted here that Mirashi’s conjecture in taking the words sāhasa and aṅka signifying four and nine respectively, may be taken to be incidently applicable in the case of the singular example of the Rēwā stone inscription of Vijayasiṁha, dated in the Kalachuri year 944 ; but not anywhere else as in the present inscription. Also cf. Vatsarā Sāhasāṁkē in. v. I of the Rōhtāsgaḍh rock inscription of V.S. 1279 in Ep. Ind., Vol. IV, p. 311, where Kielhorn took the second word to denote Vikramāditya.