North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

TEXT^[1]
[Metres : Verses l. 6 and 8 Anushṭubh ; vv. 2, 4, 7, 14, 18, 27 and 28 Śārdūlavikṛīḍita; v. 3 Indravajrā. Upajāti or Vasantatilakā (as shown by the first five letters only); v. 5 Mandākrāntā; vv. 10, 15, 17, 19, 21, 25 and 29 Vasantatilakā; v. 12 Pushpitāgrā; v. 16 Sragdharā; vv. 20 and 26 Hariṇī; vv. 22 and 24 Mālinī; v. 23 Drutavilambita; v. 9, 11 and 13 are totally lost].

No. 114 ; PLATE CVI
KHAJURĀHŌ STONE INSCRIPTION OF DHAṄGADĒVA OF THE YEAR 1059;
RENEWED BY JAYAVARMADEVA IN THE YEAR 1173

THE stone bearing this inscription is built into the wall on the right side of the entrance of the temple of Viśvanātha at Khajurāhō^[8] in the Chhatarpur District of the Vindhya region of Madhya Pradesh. It is said to have been found in February 1838 at the temple at that place, by Captain T. S. Burt, of the Bengal Engineers, who first published the record, with an English translation by J. C. C. Sutherland, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. VIII (1839) pp. 159-184. The contents of the inscription were next discussed by Alexander Cunningham in his Archaeological Survey of India Reports, Vol. II (1862-1865), p. 423, and again in ibid., Vol. XXI (1883-1884), p. 66, publishing a small-size photolithograph of it (Pl. xviii) ;9 and subsequently it was edited by F. Kielhorn in the Nachrichten d. Königl. Ges. d. Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 1886, pp. 441-462, from a rubbing supplied to him by Fleet. But since the rubbing from which Kielhorn prepared his text was rather indifferent, as he himself remarked, he made another attempt to edit the record, with an improved version of the text prepared from two new impressions taken and supplied to him by Burgess. This article in which he also corrected Burt’s errors^[10] was printed in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I (1888), pp. 147, without any lithograph or translation. The record is edited here from an excellent inked impression kindly placed at my disposal by the Chief Epigraphist of the Archaeological Survey of India.^[11]

The record consists of thirty-four lines of writing and covers a space about 1∙57 metres broad by 0∙86 metres high. The last of the lines is about three-fourth of the rest in length.
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^[1] Here 29 syllables of v. 23 and 19 of v. 24 are lost.
^[2] Here 37 syllables of v. 25 and 6 of v. 26 are lost.
^[3] Here 47 syllables of v. 27 are lost.
^[4] From this letter onwards the lower parts of the syllables are lost in the impressions, but they can be made out from what remains.
^[5] Here 47 syllables of v. 28 are lost.
^[6] The first syllable of the word mṛigāṅka, ‘the moon’, is lost in the preceding line.
^[7] Here 46 syllables of v. 29, along with the remainder of the inscription, are lost. The expression tadīyatanayaḥ in this line no doubt
refers to Sallakshaṇavarman who is known from the other records of the house.
^[8] For the situation of this place, see above, Nos. 97-98. For the description of the temple, see A. S. I. R., Vol. II, p. 422. It is also known as of
Pramathanātha, and Marakatēśvara, as stated respectively, below, in ll. 31 and 33.
^[9] As rightly observed by Kielhorn in Ep. Ind., Vol. I. p. 137, n., in the plate it is wrongly described as the ‘Inscription of Gaṇḍa Dēva’,
whereas the name Gaṇḍa occurs nowhere in this inscription.
^[10] Cunningham, who saw the stone standing loose in the temple of Viśvanātha, also remarked that the record required a careful revision as
it abounds in mistakes.
^[11] It is his No. B-248 of 1959-60.