North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

ḌUBKUṆD STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF VIKRAMASIṀHA

stone which is now preserved in the Central Museum, Gwalior,¹ and two impressions, one of which was supplied to me by the Curator of the Museum and the other by the Superintending Archaeologist at Bhopal.²

The place, where the inscribed stone was found, lies in a dense forest and is situated about 70 kms. west-northwest of Shivpurī, on the top of a table-land, 122 kms. due south-west of Gwālior, the actual distance by road being about 160 kms. It is on the left bank of Kunu, a tributary of the Chambal. The inscription was seen by Cunningham’s draftsman, on one of the pilasters in the south cloister of an old temple standing in the midst of an enclosure surrounded by the remains of several small temples.³

The total height of the pilaster is 112 cms., and it is 47∙7 cms. broad. The inscription contains 61 lines of writing which covers a space 42∙5 cms. broad by 100 cms. high. It is in a state of fair preservation, with the exception of a few aksharas in the first two lines where parts of the surface of the stone have peeled off. Some of the aksharas are here and there damaged, but they can be made out from the context, with the exception of two at the commencement of l. 7 and one in l. 15. Nothing of historical interest, however, is lost. The size of the letters is between 1∙1 and 2∙5 cms.

The characters are Nāgarī of the eleventh century A.C. Attention may be drawn to the formation of some of the letters. The initial a is written in two different ways ; cf. e.g., adhyāsya, l. 9 and ajani, l. 21 ; in a singular instance in dyuti-, l. 16, the medial short u appears in the middle in right as attached to r in guru in ll. 40 and 45 ; the medial long ū is indicated by a curve attached to the middle of the vertical on the left and tuned downwards as to appear as a subscript t ; see pūga, l. 7 ; the rare initial ṛi occurs in Ṛishabha-, l. 2, and the initial ē resembles a triangle with its vertical point below, as in ēva-, l. 21. Of the consonants, k, when the first member of a conjunct and when the mātrā of ṛi is attached to it, loses its loop, as in kshaya-, l. 5 and -kṛichch-, l. 6 ; the conjunct consonant gg occasionally appears as gn and ṇṇ as nl, for which see respectively vinirgata, l. 32 and mārggaṇa, l. 16, and varṇṇana-, l. 19 ; the lowest extremity of ḍ is not turned up as a tail ; see ḍiṇḍīra-, l. 13 ; th and chh as subscript are laid flat and appear almost alike ; cf., e.g., prasthāna and nirgachchhad, both in l. 14 ; dh is in a transitional stage, appearing both as with and without the horn on its left limb and also with or without the top-stroke, and occasionally the vertical of dhā is joined by a horizontal stroke ; see prasādhita-, l. 8, -dhārā, l. 16 and Vōdha and gandha-, both in l. 9, for all these examples. Occasionally it is difficult to distinguish between t and n, ch, dh and v, m and the palatal and the dental sibilants.

The language is Sanskrit, and except for the introductory obeisance, a portion in lines 54-58, and the date etc., in the end, the record is metrically composed throughout. It has 37 verses, which are not numbered.

As regards orthography we may note (1) the use of the sign for v to denote b as well, as in vōdha for bōdha in l. 9 ; (2) the occasional use of the dental for the palatal sibilant and vice versa; see saśinau, l. 37 and śatasō-, l. 45 ; (3) the reduplication of a consonant following r (with a few exceptions like dharma-karma, l. 49 ; (4) the use of the pṛishṭha-mātrā ; and (5) the general tendency to use an anusvāra in place of a nasal, except in a very few instances, as in kālāntara, l. 54, as opposed to chaṁdra in l. 6 and gaṁdha, l. 9. This remark does not apply to a nasal when it ends a verse or a hemistich.

In spite of the fact that the letters are well formed and carefully engraved and also that the language is generally correct, a few grammatical errors have crept in : they are ujvala for ujjvala, l. 13 ; chchhaträ for chhatra, l. 18 and niḥparyāyaṁ for nishparyāyaṁ, l. 28.

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¹ The stone was removed to the Museum some time about 1916 A.C. See Gwalior Arch. Rep. for V.S. 1973, No. 46 which is in manuscript form.
² Neither of the impressions alone is perfect for editing the record on its basis, but they supplement each other. And my transcript of the record, which was prepared from them both, was also revised from the original, subsequently.
³ Cunningham’s A.S.I.R., Vol. XX, pp. 99 ff. For Ḍubkuṇḍ, see Ind. Atlas, Quarter-Sheet 51 ; Long. 77º 5½’E., 25º 43½’ N., as mentioned by Kielhorn, in Ep. Ind., Vol. II, p. 232. However, in the map of the C.I. Agency, published by the Survey of India Office, Calcutta, in 1886, the place is shown situated on the west bank of Parang (Pārā) which too is a tributary of the Chambal and flows about 15 kms. west of Kunu, almost parallel to it.