North Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE YAJVAPALAS OF NARWAR

No. 178 ; PLATE CXLIII
SURWĀYĀ STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF GAṆAPATI
[ Vikrama ] Year 1350

THE slab bearing this inscription is stated to have been discovered at Surwāyā^[12] a small village about 20 kms. east of Sīprī (Shivpurī), and is now exhibited in the archaeological Museum at Gwālior. A synopsis of the contents of the record, prepared by Hiranand Sastri, was published in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, Vol. for the year 1903-04, Pt. II, pp. 286 f. and it was included by D. R. Bhandarkar in his List of Inscriptions of Northern India, No. 636. The inscription was also published in the Epigraphia Indica. Vol. XXXII, pp. 339 ff., and Plate. It is edited here from the original stone, which I examined in the museum where it exists, and from an inked impression which I owe to the kindness of the Chief Epigraphist of the Archaeological Survey of India.

The record is incised on a stone slab measuring 57.5 cms. square, including a broad border on all the four sides. The inscribed portion, which is in a sunken panel of it, consists of 22 lines covering a space 41.9 cms. broad by 43.18 cms. high. It is neatly engraved and is in an excellent state of preservation, with a few aksharas damaged here and there. Writing in 1903, Hiranand Sastri remarked that “one letter in the second line, two in the third and fifth lines and one in the seventh and the seventeenth lines are abraded” ; but now it has suffered slightly
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1 This is a contraction of rāüta. Perhaps we have also to read daṁgrōta-.
2 This word stands for saṁghaṭṭa, meaning a battle (D.C.S).
3 That is, died in fighting, as in some of the Baṅglā inscriptions. Cf. No. 168, l. 9, and No. 172, l. 5. above.
4 Restore the whole to
5 Read . The second akshara which was probably intended to be , is misformed and appears as ra.
6 That is, were killed in the battle.
7 Read (Sanskrit)-. Rā stands for rāüta ; see n. above. The reading of the name that follows is not certain.
8 The word tasya here refers to Malayavarman, and the word kīrtti denotes the pillar raised in memory of him.
9 What follows the second akshara in this is probably .
10 This letter is extremely mutilated and I follow Sircar’s reading, though the probability of it being cannot be altogether avoided.
11 The last letter appears to have a faint sign of anusvāra above, or it may be the fault of the stone.
12 The information about the name of the place is based on H. N. Dvivedi’s Gwalior Rājya-kē Abhilēkhā, No. 163. In his A. S. I. R. (Vol. II,
p. 316) Cunningham states to have discovered an inscription in a well locally known as the Sūpaṭ bāoḍī and it appears to have been the same.
In his Guide to Surawya, p. 25, n. 3. M.B. Garde also expressed the same view.