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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
SUPPLEMENTARY INSCRIPTIONS
No. 188 ; PLATE CLXIV THE discovery of this inscription was intimated to me by Shri V. Mishra, Superintending Archaeologist of the Western Circle of the Archaeological Survey of India, who also favoured me with a set of impressions which were prepared by his technical assistant Shri K. P. Gupta, who found the stone in 1971. The inscription does not appear to have been noticed before, and it is edited here, for the first time, from the above mentioned impressions. As I was information, the record is incised on the upper part of a pillar on the right side of the entrance to the maṇḍapa of a temple dedicated to Śiva, popularly know as Sātalēśvara, in the village Chītrī, on the bank of the Māhī and about 10 kms. south-southwest of Sagwāḍā, the principal town of a tehsīl in the Ḍūṅgarpur District in the southern part of Rājasthān. The inscription consists of six lines, and, to judge from the impressions, it covers a space 37.5 cms. broad by 25 cms. high. It is in a fair state of preservation, except that parts of some letters in the first line are obliterated. The height of the individual letters ranges between 2.5 and 3 cms.
The alphabet is Nāgarī of the thirteenth century, to which the record belongs. What is worth noting from the palaeographical point of view is only that the letters ch, dh and v have developed their distinct forms, e.g., in uddhṛita- in l. 2 and v(b)ūḍā- and Chītalīya-, both in the last line. The record is bilingual ; in the first three lines the language is Sanskrit, and what is stated here is repeated in its latter part, in a local dialect. The orthography calls only for the general remarks, such as the use of v for b, as in vudha-, l. 1, of the dental for the palatal sibilant, as in –vaṁsa¬-, l. 3, of the pṛishṭha-mātrās, and of the Prakrit word satka in l. 2. The aim of the inscription is to record the restoration of the temple where it was found, viz., that of Sātalēśvara, as called in l. 2 there of It is stated to have been originally constructed by Sanatkumāra who belonged to the Paramāra clan, and it was restored by the Rāüta Jāla. The date, which is recorded in the first line only in figures is the amāvāsyā of the month Phālguna, on Wednesday in the (Vikrama) year 1314, which corresponds to 6th March. 1258 A.C. The year was Kārtikādi and the month amānta. But as the circle of the unit figure shows a point at the bottom, it is also possible to take the figure as 7, with its curve lost. If it was so intention, the date would correspond to Wednesday, 7th February, 1257 A.C., for the Chaitrādi expired year and for the month beginning with the full moon. With respect to Sanatkumāra who originally constructed the temple, the inscription says nothing except that he was in the Paramāra clan ; but we have no evidence to show that he belonged to any of the royal houses of the Paramāras. However, the inscription is included here in view of its being bilingual and also in that of its provenance, which is in the southern region of the Ḍūṅgarpur District which adjoins to that of Bānswāḍā in Rājasthān. The region as a whole was at one time known as Vāgaḍa where one of the junior branches of the Paramāras held sway, as already seen above. In respect of the geographical names occuring in the inscription, Chītali is the modern village of Chītrī, as already seen above, and Būḍāpaṭa, occurring in the last line, appears in be the village Bēdoowā, situated about 12 kms. south of Chitri.
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