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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHANDELLAS OF JEJAKABHUKTI TEXT1
No 124 ; Plate CXII KHAJURĀHŌ STONE IMAGE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF MADANAVARMAN [ Vikrama ] Year 1215 THIS inscription was discovered by Sir A. Cunningham and was first brought to notice by him in his Annual Reports of the Archaeological Survey of India Vol. II (1862-65), p 435. He also published its transcript and a specimen of letters employed in it, in ibid., Vol. XXI (for 1883-84 and 1884-85), p. 61, and Pl. xx-D. The inscription was then edited by Kielhorn in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I (1888), pp. 152 f., where he gave his own reading of the text from an impression supplied by the late Dr. Burgess. But the article is not illustrated. The inscription is edited here from an impression placed at my disposal by the Chief Epigraphist for India.8 The inscription is incised on the top of the pedestal of a colossal stone image, seated, of the third Jaina pontiff Saṁbhavanātha, in a small ancient Jaina temple dedicated to Ādinātha at Khajurāhō9 in the Chhatarpur District of the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh .The record consists of a single line divided into two parts by a boss showing the seated figure of a horse,10 to right, in a rectangle of a beaded border, with a petal-like object on either side, the whole design occupying a space 6 cms. broad by 3∙5 cms. high. The first part of the writing measures 48∙8 cms. and the second 43∙4 cms. The average size of the letters is 1 cm. The inscription is in a good state of preservation.
The characters belong to the twelfth century A.C., and are precisely of the same type as to be found in the Chandēlla inscriptions of the age. What is worth noting in this respect is that the form of dh is devoid of the horn on its left limb, as in sādhu, and the form of the subscript r is complete, with the former member of the conjunct half-drawn, of which tat-putra-is the only instance and prabhṛiti is a probable exception. The medial short u attached to r has the same form as when attached to other letters ; cf. –ruha, and this consonant, appearing all the three times in the end, shows a loop with a wedge attached to it. The language is incorrect Sanskrit and the inscription is in prose. In respect of orthography, we note the use of s for ś, only in one instance (-vaṁsē-), the doubling of a consonant following r, as in –varmma-, the medial ē denoted both by the pṛishṭha- and the ūrdhvamātrā, the ______________________________ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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, as it figures in No. 190, l. I. 
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