North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE YAJVAPALAS OF NARWAR

Roman characters and a facsimile prepared from impressions under his supervision in 1952, in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXXIII (1959-60), pp. 31 ff. It is edited here from the original stone and one of the above-mentioned impressions, which was kindly supplied to me by the Chief Epigraphist.^[1]

   The slab, on which the record is inscribed in a sunken panel, measuring 70 cms. broad by 58 cms. high, including the plain border it has on all the four sides. The writing, which covers a space 55 cms. broad by 46∙5 cms, high, consists of twenty-nine lines. The size of the individual letters ranges between 1 and 1∙5 cms. In about the first one-third portion of the inscription, they are slightly bigger and sparsely written than those in the remaining portion, where they are somewhat unsymmetric in form and size. The mechanical execution of the inscription is sloven and subsequent insertions as of the visarga in namaḥ, l. 1 and the daṇḍas often, corrections by overwriting, changes of the forms of some of the aksharas by redundant chisel strokes, and such other foibles on the part of the engraver are to be noticed here and there, to which attention has been drawn in the transcript that follows or in the foot-notes appended to it.

   The characters are Nāgarī. As regards individual letters, attention may be drawn to the form of k, which sometimes loses its loop when a mātrā is attached to it below, e.g., in -aṁkura-, l. 1, and when it is a superscript of a conjunct consonant, e.g., in vakshaḥ, l. 2 ; ch, which has already developed its modern Nāgarī form, occasionally shows its reversion to that of v, e.g., in -chakāra, l. 4 ; the superscript forms of t and n are occasionally alike ; cf. chhinna- and tanvat-, both in l. 6 ; the slightly varying forms of bh may be noticed in bhaṁga, bhūti- and –bhēva, all in l. 24 ; r, which generally appears in its modern form, is occasionally wedged as in ravēr = api, l. 4, and is also sometimes marked as a vertical with a stroke attached to it on the left at the middle, cf. Rauhiṇēya- and –riva, both in l. 9 ; and lastly, the left limb of the palatal s is often joined to its vertical and that of the dental s begins with a curve so as to show a combination of both these letters ; cf., e.g., vilāśa-, l. 2, śuta-, l. 3 and –dhipaśya, l. 13. Because of these peculiarities both these consonants cannot occasionally be distinguished from each other.

   The language is Sanskrit ; and except for a short sentence in the beginning and the portion embodying the date at the end, the whole record is metrically composed. In all there are 29 verses, all of which are numbered ; but in the process of marking them, the figure 23 is repeated by inadvertence. Thus the total number of the verses is really 30. The language is fluent and often contains figures of speech like anusprāsa, upamā, utprēkshā, rūpaka and ślēsha.

   As regards orthography, the inscription follows more or less the same system as to be observed in those of the contemporary times, e.g., (1) the use of the sign for v to denote b as in vīja-, l. 1 ; (2) the general use of the sign of anusvāra to denote a nasal even at the end of a stich, with a very few exceptions as in l. 2 ; (3) the occasional doubling of a consonant following r, as in kīrtti, l. 13 but not in saṁtarpaṇa-, l. 25 ; and (4) an indiscrimination between the use of the palatal and the dental sibilant, e.g., in srī-, l. 4, svasita, l. 8 and Pasupati, l. 17, the dental sibilant is put for the palatal, and in āśīt, l. 14, śita, l. 18 and śīma, l. 25, the reverse is the case. Besides these, the kāka-pada sign appears at the end of some of the lines, to indicate that the word which could not be completed there is continued in the next line. There are a few grammatical and scribal errors, e.g., the word ujjvala is written with a single j in l. 23, nistriṁśa as nistruṁśa in l. 8, kīrttivatāṁ for kīrttimatāṁ in l. 12, and śēshara for śēkhara in l. 19.

   The proper object of the inscription is to commemorate the construction of a step-well (vāpī), by Dēvadhara, son of Jalhaṇa and the chief officer (Minister) of Āsalladēva. The date given in the end of the record, in numerical figures only, is, Friday, the 6th day of the dark half of Mārgaśirsha of the (Vikram) year 1336. It regularly corresponds to Friday, 27th October, 1279, for the Chaitrādi V. expired and the pūrṇimānta month.

   The contents of the record are as follows. Opening with the auspicious word Svasti and following it, a short sentence paying obeisance to Śiva, in the first verse, it glorifies the same deity, and in the second it invokes his blessings. Verses 3 and 4 respectively describes Nalapura (modern Narwar in the Śivpurī District) and the king Chāhaḍa who was reigning at that place.
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^[1] It is A.R. No. 141 of 1952-53. In my visit to Gwālior in December, 1970, I succeeded in availing myself of a fresh impression taken under my supervision ; it helped me to finalise the transcript.