North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI

In 1888, when Kielhorn wrote, the stone had already suffered from a crack running through it from top to bottom and rendering one or two aksharas illegible, but it has since developed another crack in the middle which cuts the stone transversally, from ll. 1 to 21 on the right Except these two cracks which have rendered a few aksharas illegible, the writing is well preserved throughout. The size of the letters varies from about 2 to 2∙5 cms. Lack of uniformity in their size is occasionally noticeable and some of them are closely packed up. Slovenliness on the part of the writer as well as of the engraver is also apparent from subsequent corrections by over-writing or chiselling parts of letters and also making insertions, which are all noticeable here and there.

The characters belong to the Nāgarī alphabet and resemble those of the Kālañjara inscription of the time of Kīrttivarman which was incised only about twenty-five years earlier in V.S. 1147. Owing to the slovenliness in writing, as already remarked, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the forms of some of the letters; nevertheless, the present inscription evinces some palaeographical peculiarities showing a number of letters both in their older as well as in advanced form, indicating that they were in a transitional stage in the region during this period.

As regards the formation of the individual letters, the initial i appearing e.g., in ity = ālāpa-, l. 24, consists of two loops, the first of which shows a fine tail below and the second a hook above ; k which is written in its modern Nāgarī form is occasionally incised in ligature, e.g., in kālēna-, l. 8 ; and as the first member of a conjunct consonant or with a mātrā below, this letter either loses its loop or the same is joined to its vertical not directly but with a horizontal stroke ; see Śakuni, l. 19, and kṛita- and kshunna, both in l. 20, but with a few exceptions like kṛita- in l. 13, where we find the loop of k ; ṇṇ appears as nl, as in -karṇṇa-, l. 19 ; the upper loop of th is closed as found in modern Nāgarī ; see padārtha-, l. 3; dh is written both in its older form without a horn on its left limb, as in vyadhatta, l. 20, and also in its advanced form where the horn appears, as in sudhī- in the same line ; in vidhi-, l. 2, this letter has a top-stroke ; in dhara- in the same line the top-stroke resembles a crescent, and in -dhara, l. 29, the horn assumes the form of a loop and is separated from any other limb ; the slightly varying forms of this letter are to be seen in expression dhana-dhānya-dhēnu-vasudhā-, l. 28, where we also find the verticals of dhā joined by a horizontal stroke in the middle. N in many cases is formed as t ; cf. rājani and tēna-, both in l. 18 ; p is occasionally marked as y ; see śilpi-, l. 27 ; and the latter of these letters is frequently written as s ; see yāvat, l. 32 ; bh is incised as a dot, a wedge, or a vertical joined to the right limb by means of a horizontal stroke as in bhrū-bhaṁga-bhīm-ānana-, l. 13 ; the letter r is incised in at least five slightly different ways ; e.g., its ch-like form can be seen in hāra-, l. 15; the wedged form in saṁgara-, l. 33 ; its form as a vertical with a horizontal stroke attached to its middle in –rārtta, l. 1 ; as a vertical with a triangular loop in rūpā-, l. 3 ; and the developed modern form as in dvāri, l. 2. As a subscript, this letter appears in its complete form with the superscript half drawn, as in chakrē, l. 27, and occasionally the subscript form also is shown by a serif, e.g., in tīvra-, l. 12. Both the sibilants ś and s are written in their older forms, e.g., in Śivāya, l. 1 and suhṛit-, l. 12, and also in their modern form, as in Śivāya, l. 2 and tasmāt, l. 12, respectively. The peculiar form of the ligature ś is also to be seen in some examples in Śrīrāma- and praśasti-, both in l. 30 ; and occasionally the former of these sibilants has also the horizontal stroke as in s ; cf. -dṛiśvā, in the same line. In some cases s and kh have not developed the tail of the left limb ; cf. both the letters in sakhī-, in l. 10 ; and finally, in a few examples the tail of h is either undeveloped or is altogether missing ; see varhā-, l. 2 and muhu-, l. 3 respectively. As regards the mātrās, in a very few examples the medial ā is denoted by a curve above the letter, e.g., in tasyā-, l. 23 ; and the medial short u is in rare instances shown by a curve turned downwards and attached to the middle of the vertical stroke, as in -Achyuta-, l. 13.

________________________________

The language is Sanskrit ; and except for the opening obeisance to Śiva, the two dates, one each at the end of ll. 32 and 34, and a sentence at the beginning of l. 33, the whole record is metrically composed in an artistic kāvya style abounding in figures and hyperbolic expressions. In all there are sixty-four verses, four of which are composed in the Rathōddhatā and one the Hariṇī metre which are rather rare. The verses are not marked by numbers, and one of them (No. 12) offends against the metre.

As regards orthography, we may note that (1) b is throughout denoted by the sign for v as in –Vrahma-, l. 4 ; (2) the class-consonant following r is generally doubled ; see nisargga, l. 6 ; and the consonant preceding r is also doubled in some instances, e.g., in –karttrā but not in