|
The Indian Analyst
|
|
North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI
TEXT[1]
No. 123; PLATE CXI-C THIS inscription was discovered by Alexander Cunningham in the working season of 1883-84, at Mahōbā[7] in the Hamīrpur District of Uttar Pradesh. It is incised on the pedestal of a statue with a shell (conch) symbol, showing the figure to be of Nēminātha, and consists of two lines. Cunningham published an eye-copy of the record, together with an indifferent transcript of the lower line, in his Archaeological Survey of India Reports, Vol. XXI, p. 73, with Plate xxiii-D. The present whereabouts of the statue, on the pedestal of which the record is incised, are not known, and thus it is not possible to have an impression thereof. Therefore, I edit the inscription here, for the first time, from the eye-copy published by Cunningham.
The characters belong to the Nāgarī alphabet. The language is Sanskrit ; and the inscription is in prose. It is not known how far the eye-copy published by Cunningham is trustworthy, but we can say that the letter dh differs from v only in that it is devoid of the top-stroke, as in sādhu, l. 1 ; th is formed of two loops placed below each other : cf. nātha-, l. 2 ; and r shows two different forms in the same word Rūpakāra, l. 2. The orthography does not call for any special remark, except that sh is written in place of kh in the name Lākhaṇa. The mistakes of engraving will be noticed in the foot-notes appended to the text. The inscription mentions the name of the illustrious ruler Madanavarman, who was no doubt the homonymous chandēlla king (1129-1163 A.C.), as also shown by its provenance. Its object is to record the dedication of the image of Nēminātha, whose symbol of conch-shell is engraved in the middle of the lines. The image was made by the Rūpakāra Lākhaṇa and it was consecrated by Gālhū, the son of sādhu Lākhū, who was, in his turn, the son of sādhu Sāṭhe.
The date of the record, as given only in figures in the second line, is Saturday, the third
day of the bright half of Ashāḍha of 1211 of the (Vikrama) era ; and, as calculated, it regularly
corresponds to Saturday 4th June, 1155 A.C.[8] The record gives an intermediate date for the
king Madanavarman, and thus it is not of any historical importance except that it shows that
Jainism was popular among some classes of people at that time.
1 From photograph. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|
.