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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
SUPPLEMENTARY INSCRIPTIONS
No. 195 ; PLATE CLXXI THIS inscription, like the previous one, was discovered by N. P. Chakravarti, Government Epigraphist for India, and was briefly noticed by him in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1930-34, p. 92. It is still unpublished. It is edited here from an impression which I owe to the kindness of the Chief Epigraphist. The inscription is engraved on the rock to the left side of the pedestal of a group of sculptures carved on another, incised with the so-called Ashṭa Śakti images near the Tarhaoni gate in the fort of Ajaygaḍh, in the Pannā District of Madhya Pradesh. The record consists of one line, which is unusually long and measures 200 cms. It is all in prose. The letters are crudely engraved, unlike those of the preceding one, and have also suffered from exposure to weather ; but with the exception of 2 or 3, they can be restored, of course, with the help of the other epigraphs near it. The average size of the letters is 3 cms., excluding the flourishes of the matras above. The characters are Nāgarī. Some of the letters, like those of the previous one, show either a knot or a curve at the beginning of the top-stroke, and the letter ē in ētāḥ appears as a triangle ending in a vertical strike. The subscript r is written so as to appear as t, e.g., in pratima. The language is Sanskrit, which is incorrect ; and the whole inscription is in prose. The pṛishṭha-mātrās are generally used, and sometimes they appear side by side with ūrdhva-matras as in Devalla devi.
The inscription does not mention the name of any king. Its object is to record that the images of Surabhi, Śiva, Gaurī and some other deities were caused to be made (carved) by Dēvalladēvī, the daughter of the Ṭhakkura Dēvadhara and the wife of one Suhaḍadēva of the Vāstavya Kāyastha family. Suhaḍadēva was the son of the Ṭhakkura Ashau, grandson of the Ṭhakkura Vāśē and the great-grandson of the Ṭhakkura Vīdana, who was in charge of the Jayapura-durga along with its gate-way (pratolika). The year of the record is mentioned in the end as the (Vikrama) Year 134x, without the other details. The unit figure of the year is not clear, though from the long vertical stroke it appears to have been either 1 or 5 ; and taking the year as 1345, the Christian equivalent would be 1286, when Bhōjavarman was on the Chandēlla throne. Suhaḍa of the present inscription is the same as mentioned in the previous record as Subhaṭa, who was the Treasury officer and Chief Minister of the king, as we have already seen.[1] The genealogy recorded in this inscription is also the same as known to us. The additional information that the present record supplies is that Suhaḍa’s wife was Dēvalladēvī, the daughter of the Ṭhakkura Devadhara. Suhaḍa and his wife Dēvalladēvī also caused to be made some other images, as we understand from still another inscription engraved below a group of them, on a block of stone, discovered by Chakravarti in his tour, lying near the water-fall at Pannā.[2] The record, as he informs us, gives the same genealogy of Suhaḍa, along with the name of his wife, and was dated on Thursday, the bright half of Śrāvaṇa of the (Vikrama) year 1366, which is equivalent to 17th July, 1309 A.C. The block appears to have originally belonged to Ajaygaḍh ; and the inscription shows that the images on it were carved nearly 22 years later than those mentioned in the present inscription and in the days when a great part of Bundelkhaṇḍ was under the Muslim ruler Ala-ud-din.
Jayapura-durga mentioned in the inscription is, as we have already seen, is the fort of
Ajaygaḍh.
[1] Above, No. 150, vv. 28-30. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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