North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

inscription, suggested that the donor may have been either the Sūtradhāra Rāma himself, or, as also is not unlikely, Vāsudēva.¹ On the other hand, while publishing Katare’s article in the Epigraphia Indica, referred to above, Dr. D. C. Sircar observed that “although the context appears to require a word like dattam instead of labdham, lines 17-20 mean to say that, on the completion of the construction by the mason Rāma, Kāyastha Dēvapāla granted, on the occasion of its installation ceremony, two hala measures of land for its maintenance.”² The argument advanced by Sircar appears to be very cogent, but in view of the word labdhaṁ as we actually find in the record, and connecting it with Rāmēṇa in l. 18, it does not appear to be altogether improbably that the mason Rāma obtained the land by way of his wages for constructing the maṇḍapa, presumably from Vāsudēva, who, as the royal preceptor, could donate it on the occasion,³ and this is why he desires the royal superintendent (ll. 9-10) to regularise the gift by obtaining the formal royal sanction for this donation also, as is implied by the expression anumanyantāṁ in l. 9 and again by pālanīyaṁ in l. 20, as in the case of the maṇḍapa.

Reference has also been made at the beginning of this article to four small lines incised on the proper lower right corner of the stone on which the present inscription is engraved. All the four lines certain about 14 or 15 aksharas which are extremely mutilated and northing except the name Vāsudēva in the first of its lines is eligible. Dr. Katare is inclined to take this inscription as a ‘marginal note’ and he observed that “the scribe who appears to have omitted a portion of the text which he later on inscribed in the margin, has drawn the attention of the reader to it by adding a note at the end of the main record, saying that the wise will read the small inscription also.”⁴ But it is noteworthy here that in l. 20 the inscription uses the word ēva and not api ; that the word laghu, as read by katare, is used without any case-ending and without any adjunct; and also that in the sense in which he took it, the use of sudhībhiḥ instead of sudhiyāṁ would have been not only grammatically correct but also more appropriate. It may also be observed here that there should have been no necessity of forming letters of bigger size at the end of the record in the last three lines, particularly knowing when the writer or the engraver could at that stage have perceived that the record would thereby remain incomplete. Viewing all these points, I am inclined to hold with Dr. Sircar that the inscription seems to be complete in itself and what Katare takes to be a ‘marginal note’ may have formed part of an altogether different record which cannot be deciphered owing to its mutilated condition.5

The only geographical name figuring in the inscription is Kālañjara in l. 5. It is the well-known fort in the Bāndā District of Uttar Pradesh, as already seen above.

TEXT⁶

[Metres: Verses l, 3 and 4 Āryā; v 2 Vasantatilakā; vv, 5-9 Anushṭubh].

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¹ Op. cit., p. 163.
² Op. cit., p. 166, n. 2.
³ See n. 2, on the previous page.
⁴ Op. cit., p. 164. Also see my reading in the text, below, and n. on it.
⁵ Op. cit., p. 166, n. 1. Attention may also be drawn here to text, n. 15 on the next page.
⁶ From the facsimile in Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXI, facing p. 164. After the text was finalised, an impression kindly supplied by the Chief Epigraphist was helpful to me in deciding the reading of a few disputable letters.
⁷ This syllable is preceded by traces as of , probably showing that the letters may have been engraved before it. Katare, who edited the inscription, took no notice of it.
⁸ Bha is engraved on ha, as also below.
⁹ Here two daṇḍas were at first engraved and the latter of them was subsequently scored off as unnecessary. It is also followed by what looks like a kāka-pada symbol.
¹⁰ A slanting stroke on the top of the left limb of this letter has changed its form.

¹¹ The fourth foot of this stanza, with its sixteen mātrās, offends against the metre, Āryā. If we add in the end of it, as required by the use of in each of the other pādas, this quarter will have eighteen mātrās, showing the verse in the Giri metre. Secondly, the daṇḍa which was later on inserted at the close of the verse, has damaged the following letter , which looks like , as actually read by Katare. For the similar idea as found in this verse, see above, No. 84. v. 1.