North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

āgama, dharmaśāstra and sāhitya and who was an abode of compassion and a limit of tranquility (śama) and truth (satya). In verse 6 we are told that this personage bestowed upon Gaṇḍa the ‘undisputed sovereignty’ of the world (i.e., the Chandēlla kingdom) and (in reward), obtained as a royal grant, the village of Dugauḍā.¹ The nature of help rendered by Jājūka to his overlord Gaṇḍa, the great-grandfather of Kīrttivarman, is not definitely known. The seventh verse of the record informs us that in the family of Jājūka was born Mahēśvara, who was of virtuous behaviour, vigorous, and his fame was sung by the wives of the Siddhas; we are also told here that by establishing the laws of Manu, this person restored the ‘golden age’. The last verse (8th stanza) mentions the proper object of the record, as we have seen above.

The Vāstavya family of the Kāyasthas mentioned in the present inscription is also described in some other records of the house and at some more length in the Ajayagaḍh stone inscription of the time of Bhōjavarman,² as we shall see in its proper context. It is, however, evident that the ancestors of Mahēśvara of the present record enjoyed the hereditary right of appointment to high posts under the royal houses of the Chandēllas.

The geographical names mentioned in the inscription are Kālañjara (l. 1). Dugauḍā (l. 3) and Pitādṛi and Pipalāhikā (both in l. 4). The first of these places is well known. Dugauḍā, as observed by Katare while editing the inscription, may be the modern Digaura (Dogora of the map), situated at 24º 58’ N. Lat. and 78º 55’ E. Long., about 24 kilometers north of Ṭīkamgaḍh. There is however, another place known as Dongorā (with an additional n), lying about 25 kilometres straight south-east of Lalitpur, the chief town in the District of Jhānsī in Uttar Pradesh but physically on the western borders of Bundelkhand which constituted the Chandēlla kingdom. The only difficulty in identifying Dugauḍā of the present inscription with either of these places is that they are at a long distance of not less than 165 kilometres straight west of Kālañjar where Mahēśvara was intended to be constantly present. Katare proposes to identify Pītādri of the inscription with the Pīta-śaila³ which is about 7 kilometres south-east of the village of Digaurā in the Baldēogaḍh tahsīl of the former Orchhā State. But if the word pīta is to be taken in its figurative sense, it denotes the yellow soil found in the region from Lalitpur to Jhānsī;⁴ and if the hill in this region may possibly have been suggested here by the use of Pītādri, the identification of Dugauḍā with the village Dongorā in the Lalitpur division, as mentioned above, gains some support. Pipalāhikā cannot be identified for want of the details, but it appears to be a village in the vicinity of the Pīta hill.

TEXT⁵

[Metres : Verses 1-2 Vasantatilakā; vv. 3-7 Upajāti; v. 8 Indravajrā].

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¹ The expression yēn=arjjitaṁ śāsanam=āvibhāti in v. 6, presents a difficulty of interpretation. Katare explains it by saying that “the grant of the village was recorded on a copper-plate, which has not yet been discovered” (op. cit., p. 88). But in that case the use of āvibhāti would be redundant. The intended reading is possibly yēn-ōrjjitaṁ śāsanaṁ, to give the sense that he strengthened the government. Cf. śrīr = asthairyam=amārjayat, v. 3 of the Dēvagaḍh inscription of the time of the same ruler.
² Nos. 149 and 150. The latter of these inscriptions also mentions both Jājūta and Mahēśvara. Both these names are also found in an inscription from the same place, dated v. 1335 Chaitra-śu 13, Monday (27th March, 1279 A.C.). See A. S. I., A. R., 1935-36, p. 91. It is not included here; its contents are the same as of the present record. For the fanciful origin of the Kāyasthas, also see C. I. I., Vol. IV, p. 267 ; and Naishadhīya Charita, XIV, v. 66.
³ Pet hill of the map of former Orchhā state, as suggested by Katare.
⁴ I. G. I., Vol. IX, p. 351.
⁵ From the facsimile facing p. 90 in Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX.
⁶ Expressed by a symbol.
⁷ All these letters are crisped and damaged. The last five of them appear to read . Is the intended reading : (?)
⁸ Originally some other letter engraved and later on corrected.
⁹ What is partly visible at the end of the line may have been a kāka-pada symbol, intended to indicate that the word is completed in the next line.