North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

CHARKHĀRĪ COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF VĪRAVARMAN

in the record. Some of the distant regions of his kingdom, however, appear to be slacking in control, as we know from the present inscription itself that the donee of the grant had performed a deed of valour by Vanquishing Dabhyuhaḍavarman, whose identity remains uncertain. From his name ending in varman, Hiralal took him to be a member of the Chandēlla family, but S. K. Mitra, on the other hand, is inclined to hold that he was “either a usurper or a rebel trying to create troubles within the state”,¹ though for want of any definite evidence, nothing on this point can be said with certainly. It can however be imagined that some of the remote provinces were probably not in full grip and caused troubles as is also shown by Vīravarman’s struggle with the contemporary Yajvapāla king Gōpāla, only about 27 years subsequently,² in the same region, lying to the west of the Chandēlla kingdom in the neighborhood of the Seondhā fort, which is in the modern Datiā District of Madhya Pradesh, on the Sindh, as correctly identified by Hiralal.

Of The place-names mentioned in the inscription, Kāliñjara (l. 6) is of course the well-known fort, and Vilāsapura (l. 12) is Pachhār, as we have seen above.³ Ḍāhī identical with the modern village of the same name, lying about 6 kms east of Bijāwar, the chief town of a tehsīl in the modern Chhatarpur District of Madhya Pradesh. Tumuṭumā, the gift-village (l. 8), I am unable to trace in the vicinity.⁴ And last of all, Sōndhī, as already observed above, is the modern fort of the name in the Datiā District of Madhya Pradesh. It is about 60 kms. north by east of Datiā and connected with it by a metalled road.

TEXT⁵

[ Metre : Verses 1-4 Anushṭubh ].

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¹ See E. R. K., p. 135.
² See Baṅglā inscriptions, below, Nos. 162-174.
³ In No. 129, etc.
⁴ Hiralal has remarked that in this plate the consonant s is often engraved as t, and the vowel a as ma. And in view of this, if we presume that the last two aksharas of the name, which were engraved as suā, may have been read by him as tumā, the intended village is Tinsuā, which lies about 100 kms. south by west of Ḍāhī and about 45 kms. north-east of Sāgar, the headquarters of a districts in Madhya Pradesh. The village contains an old temple attributed to the Chandēllas. See Sāgar Dist. Gaz., Bhopāl, 1967, pp. 548 f.
⁵ From Hiralal’s transcript in Ep. Ind., Vol XX, pp. 133 t.
⁶ One of the daṇḍas is superfluous.
⁷ Read :.
⁸ The daṇḍa is redundant.
⁹ The daṇḍa is redundant.
¹⁰ The daṇḍa is redundant.